


Disturbance In The Force

by RiaJade01



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Obsessive Behavior, Open Marriage, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2020-10-20 16:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20678759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaJade01/pseuds/RiaJade01
Summary: An alternate universe where Malavai Quinn is a Jedi whose nemesis turns out to be a Sith named Mara Thrask. And by 'nemesis' I mean... hatefuck buddy who turns into a sort of normal fuck buddy and they each destroy their own lives to be together. This is a total crackfic - an excuse for me to write outsized emotional reactions and explore unhealthy sexual dynamics.I tagged it as non-con mostly because there's quite a bit of emotional manipulation going on between the two of them - consent is never murky, but it's coming from a place of self loathing. If that's not your bag, please do skip this one.





	1. Poison Pill

_ 1329 Imperial, Herdessa _

She’s a prisoner, not that you’d know it by looking at her. Oh, her hands are bound in front of her and the major in charge of the outpost has custody of her lightsaber. But she lounges on the austere metal chair as if it’s a throne, looking for all the world like she’s receiving the soldier guarding her as a particularly boring petitioner.

Jedi Knight Malavai Quinn picks up the Sith’s weapon, running critical eyes over every detail. It’s surprisingly well-made, considering its origins. He reaches with the force for the crystal within. Synthetic, as expected, but lacking the blood-drenched murderous intent of other Sith weapons. In fact… he probes deeper… and blinks in quiet surprise. The crystal hisses at him in warning, protective of its maker as a nexu of its cubs.

A weapon that longs to return to her, and a bearing that says she’s not only unconcerned at her capture, but unimpressed by her captors performance thus far.

It’d be a lie to say he’s not intrigued. Others of his order might not admit as much to themselves, but Quinn has no use for falsehoods, and his intrigue is a perfectly logical reaction to the circumstances. It’ll pass.

“Has she said anything?” he asks the Major, handing the lightsaber back to the man.

“Plenty,” the man replies, gesturing Quinn closer to hear what’s being said inside the room, “none of it useful.”

As if on cue, in the tone one uses when commenting on the weather, she says, “I can feel your heartbeat, you know.”

The guard swallows visibly but makes no comment.

“And you secured the vehicles she was slicing?” Quinn asks the Major.

“Yes. She didn’t get very far. Master Jedi,” the Major hesitates, “she barely fought us, all things considered. It’s entirely possible this is part of a broader plot.”

“Double our watch, Major. I want sitreps every fifteen minutes. If an animal scurries past our perimeter, I want to know.”

“It will be done.”

“I can’t  _ stop  _ your heart of course, not from here,” she muses, as if thinking out loud. “But it only takes about seven kilos of pressure to crush a human skull” 

Amber eyes zero in on the guard like seeker missiles. “I would love to show you.”

The officer jerks backward, any pretense of calm forgotten and Quinn rounds on the Major.

“She’s not Force-suppressed?”

“We didn’t have the gear.”

Quinn opens the door. The officer - a second lieutenant who is barely old enough to shave - straightens in surprise, a hand still pawing at his head. But it’s disbelief, not pain - she brushed his head to scare him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Quinn says. “You may go.”

The boy obeys. Quinn shuts the door, turns to get a good look at the Sith.

She’s Red Sith, descended from the savages bred by the dark side on Korriban. Rather than the gaudily extravagant armor favored by many of her kind, she’s clad in simple black synthleather. It has the look of a uniform to it, but without rank insignia or any other identifying markers. His eyes travel up her body to lips that have twisted into a knifelike smirk. 

“Well  _ you’re _ certainly a visual improvement,” she drawls. “Took them long enough to find me a worthy adversary.”

Quinn ignores the first part of her comment. He should be flattered, he supposes, that she knows he won’t frighten nearly as easily as the lieutenant. That it’s seduction she’s shifted to, however, is a tad pedestrian. It’s also a little too practiced, like she’s still learning the art of this kind of deception. 

“Do you have somewhere else to be, Sith?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“My schedule for causing mayhem has been seriously compromised.”

“I’m  _ so  _ sorry to have ruined your day.”

“No you’re not.”

“I’m not,” he agrees.

She sniffs imperiously and leans back in the chair. “Your manners and your hospitality leave much to be desired.”

“You’re guilty of sabotaging Republic walkers and other personnel vehicles, with clear intent to kill,” he counters. “You’re bound for prison for that crime, but if you can prove yourself useful to us, perhaps our hospitality will improve.”

“The war is over, Jedi. Herdessa is a neutral world. They never wanted you here, and they want you gone.”

Quinn laughs. “Your presence here, Sith, is proof that Herdessa is most certainly not neutral, and is in fact prepared to ally itself against the Republic.” His voice drops back into seriousness. “We will not let that happen.”

“To have the unearned confidence of a self-righteous Jedi,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. She meets his gaze and sobers. “There are cultural ties to the Empire here that you won’t easily sever.”

“Addressing attachment is our specialty,” he replies. “Even you should know that.”

A sliver of emotion lances out of her. Fear. He frowns; she’s been in enemy territory for hours, and he’s almost certain she’s not afraid of  _ him _ . 

“And you call yourselves the good guys,” she says. The bravado in her voice feels brittle, as does the seductive smile when she says, “It really is a pity you were given to Tython. We could have such fun together.”

“You must know that won’t work on me,” he says, crossing his arms.

“What won’t work?” It should be impossible for anyone to don such an air of innocence, let alone a Sith, but her eyes widen and her voice becomes sticky sweet to his ear.

“ _ That _ .” He won’t dignify her behavior by describing it further.

“I don’t have the pleasure of understanding you, Master Jedi.”

And that, for reasons he can’t identify, is what gets under his skin. Perhaps it’s the immaturity of the denial, the singsong lilt to her voice. The saccharine mockery of his title. It’s as if she’s summoned him for her twisted amusement.

“Jedi are beyond such base instincts,” he growls.

“What a fascinating challenge. Sadly, our time is about up.”

_ What?  _

The Force screeches in his mind the exact moment someone starts pounding on the door. 

“Master Jedi, we have a squadron of fighters inbound. We need to evacuate  _ now _ .”

Distantly, the scream of ISF fighters wafts to his ears. He whirls on the prisoner, who is watching his reaction parade across his face, her smug pleasure filling the room like a toxic gas.

How had he not felt this coming? How had she so monopolized all of his attention?

It doesn’t matter. 

“Evacuate the rest of our personnel as best you can,” he calls. “I’m not done with our Sith yet.”

“ _ Your _ Sith?” she asks, brow stalk raised.

“How did they find us? You were scanned for transmitters and weapons.”

“For a Force-user your instincts are startlingly unimaginative,” she replies. “But then I suppose  _ attachment _ is beyond your experience.”

A roar and a sonic boom rocks the base, the latter strong enough it shorts Quinn’s vision for a moment. When he rights himself, ears still ringing, the chair is empty.

He curses and sprints through the open door. Another warning in the Force and his lightsaber is in his hand, harsh white blade slicing upward to meet bright golden-orange. He risks a glance at her wrists - she cut the connector between her cuffs.

Her blade matches her eyes. 

“Ah-ah,” she chastises him, “you’re too pretty to die today.”

She disengages. Before he can pursue, something slams into him like a herd of banthas. He flies backward into her former prison, slamming into the chair and tumbling in a heap.

The building explodes.

As the smoke clears, he sees her dimly, racing through the rubble, and an Interceptor swings low over the building. Another Red Sith woman stands on the extended gangplank.

His Sith leaps, the Force of it cratering the ground around her, and catches the edge of the gangplank. Her compatriot hauls her onto the ship.

Her boots disappearing is the last thing Quinn sees before the fighters are on him.

***

“You did well, sweeting.”

Mara drags her thoughts to the present and looks at her mother. “It’s not all that hard to get captured,  _ Marsah _ .”

“But to get captured and live? To keep your captors off-balance without pushing them into doing something stupid? That is a test of control and emotional manipulation. You did well.”

“Thank you,” Mara replies distractedly. Her thoughts are stubbornly anchored behind her, in the now-smoldering Republic base.

Distracting that Jedi had been far too much fun. She can’t admit it aloud but she’d felt a stab of disappointment when the encounter came to an end. 

There was something about him, like a wire drawn taut. That sliver of his  _ annoyance _ she’d tasted in the Force at the end… 

“I’m not sure I want to know why you’re smiling like that,” her mother says dryly. 

Heat rushes up into Mara’s face.  _ Marsera help me I’m fantasizing about a Jedi _ . 

“I’m laughing at how easily we got the drop on them, is all. It’s been a long day,” she says, and it’s only a partial lie. “I’ll be in my rack.”


	2. Feint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We jump forward ten years. The war between the Republic and the Empire has reignited and Mara has found her niche in the Empire's particular brand of big stick diplomacy. Quinn has spent that decade trying to thwart her efforts and is finally closing in for the kill when things go horribly wrong.
> 
> Trigger warning for parental death. Because I'm a monster and Mara has to inherit leadership of her house somehow.

_ 1338 Imperial, Tanaab _

_ Smack _. 

Mara slaps a hand over the insect that had the temerity to attach itself to her flesh. It’s become a ritual in the weeks she’s spent sweltering in the jungles of Tanaab. The tiny abode she’s set up for herself includes insect netting that keeps her safe indoors, but outside she’s a walking buffet as far as the local bug population is concerned. 

At least this mission is nearly over. With that thought, she steps into the temporary structure. 

“Welcome back.”

Mara freezes, hand on her lightsaber. She flicks on the lights with the Force. 

The Jedi from Herdessa is sitting on her camp bed. 

Through her shock, she can’t help noticing the intervening decade has been kind to him. He’s every bit as perfect as he is in her memories. His robes are darker than she remembers - grey over a leather tunic so deep brown it’s nearly black.

Abruptly she realizes she’s been staring and forces her gaze up to those glacier blue eyes. “How did you get in here?”

“Tython teaches its students skills other than use of the Force.”

“Slicing, for example,” she says ruefully. She should have been more careful. 

“Among other things. I’ve followed your career ever since you dropped a squadron of ISFs on my head.”

How oddly flattering. “Have you indeed?”

“Maranel Thrask, first in line to inherit leadership of your house, and a favorite attack dog for your mother and her fellow diplomats.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a material demonstration of the benefits of joining the Empire.”

“And haven’t you been busy. Riots on Arkania, an attempted coup on Chazwa. All helpfully solved by Imperial envoys.” He gives her a smug smile that makes her stomach flip. “Based on your patterns, I knew exactly where you would be.”

She forces away the foolish excitement thrumming through her. _ He’s an enemy, _ she reminds herself. And he’s a complication to be dealt with. 

He’d not responded much to her flirting during their first meeting, but she’d been an apprentice then, unpracticed. And he _ did _open the door by choosing her bed, and not the uncomfortable camp chair, as his place to lurk.

“I’m flattered you went to the trouble. But doesn’t this strain your Jedi code?” 

“How would knowing my enemy have any affect on my oaths?”

“You’ve discovered my identity, tracked me for a decade, and now,” she slinks closer, “you’ve stolen into my bed with obvious bad intent.” 

She’s rewarded with a furious flush to his cheeks. His sense, which is that same drawn wire she remembers from before, tight on the verge of breaking, trembles with emotion. It’s too deeply buried, his sense too unfamiliar, for her to know precisely _ what _emotion.

Still, she presses against those fractures with a smile and continues, “If you’re trying to seduce me, Master Jedi, it’s working.”

He bounds to his feet radiating outrage. A second after his emotion hits her, the Force slams into her gut like a fist. She crumples with a cough and staggers back.

“Your days of sowing mayhem against the Republic are over,” he snarls. “The only regret I have about my actions is that it took me this long to pin you down.”

“Trust me, when you’ve actually pinned me down, we’ll both know it,” Mara replies, dodging his next Force attack with ease. He’s pissed, and inexperienced with the feeling. It’s making him sloppy.

She slips a hand into a pocket and presses a button on her comm to alert her mother. Her other brandishes her lightsaber. Golden light floods through the tiny structure. 

“How long were you even sitting here?” she demands, cartwheeling around the blasts of the Force and the objects he hurls at her. Even if her strengths didn’t lie in close-blade combat, he clearly wants her at range, and so it’s her job to close the distance. “Did you just curl up in my bed to await my arrival, or do you actually have a plan?”

He launches a lamp at her and she hurls it back, shoving against his strength with her own. His blue eyes widen in shock and then he’s ducking beneath it, his lightsaber finally making an appearance.

“You _ are _ the plan,” he grits as she advances on him. He’s not the best swordsman. “Without you weighting the scales, no Imperial envoy would stand a chance in honest negotiations.”

“The Republic is corrupt and nearly nonexistent this far from the Core in any case,” Mara replied, breathing easily. “You’re a fool if you think-”

Pain. The Force digs white-hot fingers into her brain, closes around the knot of awareness that is her mother, and yanks. 

It doesn’t go all at once. She can feel every tendril of connection as it severs, one by one, like having her hair ripped out a little at a time. She knows what this is - what it has to be - and she fights it. Oh, she fights, scrabbling at it with all her strength in the Force, as if holding on to that knot of warmth will keep her mother alive.

That’s not how it works, of course. Eventually, it tears free, leaving a gaping wound in its place. 

She doesn’t realize she’s collapsed and screaming until she looks up from the dirt, breath wheezing through a throat that feels like raw meat. The Jedi is staring down at her, confusion etched into his perfect face.

“Liar!” she shrieks. She’s on her feet, weapon forgotten, swiping at him with bare hands. “I’ll fucking kill you, you inbred bastard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-” her fist slams into his face and his head snaps sideways, silencing him. When he rights himself, the confusion is gone, horror creeping through his sense. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. All we’re after is _ you _.”

“Then why is she _ dead _?” Mara demands, swinging at him again.

There’s no skill to her movements, just fury. Like beating him will close the hole that’s opened in her mind. He takes the punishment she deals out, not enough to put him in danger, but by the time she collapses against him, he’s bruised and groans painfully when her body weight slams into him.

There’s something akin to compassion in how he grips her arms and eases her onto her cot. An odd calm settles over her. This is it, and it’s… fine. 

His comm chimes.

“What the hell happened?” he demands without preamble. 

_ “The diplomat is dead. Did you deal with the kid?” _

“That wasn’t the plan. Don’t you understand, you attacked a _ diplomatic envoy _. That goes against everything-”

_ “They were going to turn Tanaab on us if we didn’t. Necessity of war. Is she dead?” _

Blue eyes hold hers as he says, “Yes. I’ll be at the rendezvous in ten.”

He pockets the comm and stalks to the door, limping a little thanks to the damage she’s done to him.

“What are you doing?” she croaks. He can’t just deposit her here and leave like she’s nothing. Like she has to _ deal with this _.

He freezes, turns to look at her like he has to force his body to complete the motion. “I’m sorry. I didn’t- they said this was my mission to plan as I pleased. I never intended-”

“Kill me.”

His jaw drops open. “_ What? _”

“You beat me. My life is yours by right.”

“I had an unfair advantage.”

“Please.” Her voice breaks and she feels another wave of tears stain her cheeks. “Kill me.”

That almost-compassion flashes across his face again and he kneels before her cot, his face uncomfortably close to hers. 

“If your life is mine, then I order you to live. When I fight you next I expect you to be in peak form.”

***

Hours later, Quinn paces the tiny cabin on his ship. 

What the fuck did he just do? Why let the chit live just because her mother died? Everyone killed by a Jedi has children or parents or lovers or friends to mourn them; this Sith diplomat and her murder spawn are no different.

There is no justification for his actions, no reason except stupid emotional compromise. His pride is hurt, a natural reaction to his compatriots ignoring his orders. More bothersome, this Maranel’s pain had bothered him. He couldn’t bring himself to compound it, or to remove her from the galaxy. Ego and misplaced… something. It’s that simple.

And that dangerous. 

Slowly, he settles into a meditation form, diving into the Force to clear his head. He can’t change past actions, but he can cleanse himself of the weakness that caused it. 

He will not be so foolish again.


	3. Fractures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout from Tanaab, and a certain vengeful Sith Lord, catch up with Jedi Quinn on Balmorra. (Because OF COURSE it'll be Balmorra.) Trigger warnings for blood and manipulative intimacy apply.

_ 1339, Balmorra _

Balmorra is not Quinn’s favorite world. It’s neither beautifully wild like Alderaan, nor thriving metropolis like Coruscant. It’s a shithole, is what it is, scrub brush wilderness overrun by man-sized bugs of murderous intent. 

Compared to colicoids, he thinks as he finds a relatively flat spot on his chosen cave floor, dealing with Sith is a walk in the park.

As if conjured by the thought, the Force sizzles in warning and he looks up to see a pair of amber eyes glowing in the darkness beyond the range of his camp torch. He knows who she is before Maranel Thrask steps into the circle of light.

There’s a gold circlet sitting on her brow that wasn’t there when he last saw her and she’s traded her nondescript black synthleather for heavily plated greaves and segmented armor protecting her left arm. Her saber arm is bare, as is her toned, red midriff below a blastweave top. Over it all is a sheer black cloth held in place by the pauldron over her left shoulder and her utility belt. 

He’s been expecting her, not on Balmorra precisely, but ever since that disastrous mission on Tanaab. Frankly, he’s surprised it took her a full year to track him down. Despite that, seeing her unleashes a storm of emotion and  _ damn it _ he thought he’d dealt with this already.

Anger at his former colleagues and the Council that hadn’t even bothered slapping them on the wrist for breaking their own rules of war. Misplaced guilt. An odd relief to see the woman standing before him only somewhat worse for wear.

“Lord Thrask,” he says with a nod, feeling the weight of the weapon at his belt but not reaching for it yet.

“Malavai Quinn,” she purrs, and an unwelcome thrill runs through his body at the sound of his name falling from her lips. 

“You learned my name.”

“It’s important to name your mother’s killer, not that you would understand.”

“Then my name is not the one you want,” he says calmly.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get the others.” 

She smiles that smile that nearly had the soldiers on Herdessa wetting themselves. It doesn’t frighten Quinn, not exactly, but it’s stunning on her, the snarl of a predator ready to pounce. She draws her blade.

“I’ll enjoy watching you try,” he says. 

And he means it. She’s settled into a perfect Djem So stance, the muscles of her all-too-visible abdomen contracting slowly with each measured breath. She’s filled with righteous fury - he can feel it in the Force like waves of heat from an oven - but she’s not drunk on the emotion. Keen amber eyes scan over him, picking apart everything about how he ignites his lightsaber and answers with a modified Juyo stance.

“Been practicing, have we?” she asks, circling him slowly.

“Yes.” He sees no point in denying it. She laid bare the weaknesses in his saber technique during their last encounter. Only fools refuse to learn from setbacks.

Even the emotional fallout of Tanaab has proven useful. However embarrassing it is that the wellspring of emotions within him has become a pressure cooker ever since then, he’s found it useful to channel into his swordcraft. He’s keenly aware of the line he walks in failing to purge those feelings - one wrong step, and into the Dark Side he’ll go - but denying them only made it impossible to function. 

Let it never be said that Malavai Quinn isn’t a realist.

She strikes. It’s a powerful two-handed swing that jolts both arms when he parries. 

Sparks fly and he lunges into her guard for a quick riposte that she easily steps away from. It’s he who engages next, dashing to her left. She jerks in surprise, but it’s too late to bring her blade up. His victorious grin falters when a shield blooms to life around her arm.

She turns his blade aside and, in that second of opening, smacks him with the hilt of her saber.

Stars sparkle across his vision, but she doesn’t press the attack. Rather, she waits for him to center himself.

“What are you waiting for?” he demands.

“You think you’ll get so easy an end from me,  _ Jedi _ ?”

“How like a Sith, playing with your food.”

She smirks at him. “Vengeance is best served hot, don’t you think?”

That’s not how that saying goes, but he can’t correct her because she’s launched herself at him again and his world shrinks until she’s all that exists. The tensing of muscles or hitching of breath that telegraph her movements, the anger roiling around her that has become almost playful as it skips through his Force senses. 

He has no idea how long this continues. Engage, parry, counterattack. It’s a conversation Quinn finds himself inexplicably unwilling to end, but then so is she. They both decline to press certain advantages, though they trade innumerable non-lethal blows. 

It’s just after she’s slammed him into the rock wall that she says, “I can’t help but notice you’re alone out here, days from the nearest Republic outpost.”

“I will not divulge anything of my mission to you,” he grits through the pain in his ribs.

“Not inclined to trust your fellow Jedi after Tanaab?” she asks sweetly.

He doesn’t know if it’s her saccharine tone, perfectly pitched as always to needle past his defenses, or the fact that she’s  _ right _ , but something in him snaps.

He backhands her across the face and drives forward with all his weight, shoving her away. He keeps pushing, as if she is his guilt and his doubt, and if he pushes hard enough he’ll be free of them all. The impact shocks him back to reality when she collides with the opposite wall.

Her lightsaber thuds to the floor and she drives her fist into his gut. He coughs and his grip slackens. Her breath thunders in his ear and it’s only then that he realizes how close she is.

“Tell me who killed my mother,” she whispers. 

There’s no mockery in it, no rage. Just a simple, reasonable request tickling against his ear and it’s the most intimate thing he’s ever experienced.

He tells her. He whispers in her ear like a lover: names, likely locations. Nothing else - no shield codes, nothing that would generally compromise Republic security. But if the Order won’t take war criminals in hand, he feels no remorse in handing them over to someone who will.

That’s a lie. He feels… not remorse, but the finality of the act. He’s a traitor to his fellow Jedi, no matter that they betrayed him first. How demented is he, that he’ll trust the honor of a Sith over his own people?

“Oh, it would be a pity to kill you now,” she sighs.

He raises his head to ask what the hell she means, and then her lips are on his.

It lasts only a heartbeat, a chaste kiss one might exchange with a family member or friend. But she tastes of sweat and the blood from her split lip and there is nothing  _ chaste _ about the way her body feels against his.

She pulls back enough to look him in the eye.

“I want you to  _ live _ with this, Malavai Quinn. Live with the blood of your fellow Jedi on your hands, and the taste of my blood on your lips.”

She flings him back with the Force and when his vision clears, she’s gone.

He builds a fire with shaking hands, seeks meditation that eludes him. He doesn’t wipe her blood from his mouth.

That night, the dreams start.

***

Mara lays in a course for her first target then holos her estate. She blinks in surprise when Edik answers. They’ve only been married for six months and she’s not used to his presence in her life.

“Checking up on me?” he asks. He’s shirtless and a little rumpled. 

“Nothing so unpleasant,” she answers. “Merely letting you know I’ll be on mission for a few more weeks, maybe a month.”

There’s a flash of excitement on his face, quickly buried, and she sighs.

Edik has no sexual interest whatsoever in women generally, nor does Mara have any interest in Edik in particular. It was their businesses and bloodlines that were ripe for joining, not themselves. They entered this arrangement with full knowledge of that fact. 

“You know I don’t have to be offworld for you to entertain,” she says. 

This is part of their agreement. They each see who they like, fuck who they like, so long as their businesses are protected and their medical records remain open to the other. No unexpected children or blackmail.

“I know,” he replies. “It simply feels… awkward.”

“Nonsense. I quite liked Innan when I met him; he seems like a good match for you.”

Edik sighs ruefully. “He heard that. He’ll be insufferable for the rest of the day.”

“I’ll leave you to take him back in hand,” she replies with a smirk. 

“And you?” Edik asks. 

Mara hesitates. It’s been far too long, but no one in their circle has been both appealing and safe. No one but…. She firmly banishes the memory of Jedi Quinn’s lips on hers and his sense buzzing against her like a metaphysical vibrator.

“No one at the moment, but don’t let that stop you. Perhaps Innan has a friend who is interested in women.”

Edik laughs. “I’ll ask him.” A pause and his face becomes serious. “Good hunting, wife.”

He cuts the transmission and Mara relaxes into her pilot’s chair.

It’s not the sort of match she dreamed of when she was a teenager, nor really the sort of match her family would wish for her. But between her mother’s death and Daveth’s following soon after, she simply can’t deal with the sort of closeness a love match would imply. 

Edik is perfectly friendly, an insightful businessman, and willing to donate his sperm to sire her children. That’s all that matters. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mara's armor here is something I designed for my mainverse story, Reduced To Ash. The idea is that there are certain killings that are ritualistic in nature, and an observant Red Sith will wear functional-but-symbolic armor and a shroud (the sheer black cloth). 
> 
> Also, yes, I am a monster who has killed Daveth in two verses. One day I'll write an AU where he lives, I promise.


	4. Cloying Fruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara has finished her quest for vengeance save for one man: Jedi Knight Malavai Quinn. When she tracks him down, she's delighted to find her poisoned kiss left a deeper impression than she anticipated. Smut be here, kiddos. It's the mutually loathing kind that's consensual but quite unhealthy.

Jedi are easy to kill. It’s almost disappointing when she’s striding through Nar Shaddaa barely a month later, fresh from her final kill, senses latching onto a familiar, painfully taut presence in the Force. How he must  _ hate  _ it here, and she’s almost giddy with anticipation at finding out just what sordid business has brought him to this gaudy den of iniquity.

That anticipation becomes almost overwhelming when her senses lead her into the upper levels of the Red Light District, to an establishment whose services cost far more than Mara ever thought a Jedi would have on hand in credits. That is, in part, because the proprietess pays her employees well and quite conspicuously does not deal in trafficked individuals.

The human woman at the front desk freezes when she sees Mara’s lightsaber and obvious markers of Sith species. 

“Be at ease,” Mara says with a genuine smile. “I’m meeting a friend here. If you’d like me to check my weapon…”

“No, madam, that’s not necessary.” The woman may be well paid, but clearly not enough to get between a Sith and her lightsaber.

Mara steps into a richly-appointed parlor. Both the furniture and the employees are exquisitely beautiful, made all the moreso by the fact that they’re here of their own free will, plying a trade they’ve carefully honed. Mara sighs with regret as she gently turns down a gorgeous Nautolan man and then a Cathar woman who towers over her by a handspan.

Perhaps she’ll have to come back when she’s not otherwise occupied.

She follows her senses up two flights of stairs and down an interminable hallway. The door before her isn’t locked - why would it be? - and so she keys it open and steps inside.

Quinn is perched stiffly on a couch holding a glass of sparkling wine. His posture is clearly the only thing about him that’s stiff. Unless Mara is very much mistaken, the delicate Human woman whose services he’s purchased is running out of tricks to put him at ease and is verging into professionally affronted territory.

The woman leaps up at the sound of Mara’s entrance, whirling with a scowl.

“This is a private-” she cuts off when she gets a look at Mara’s weapon and disheveled appearance.

Behind her, Quinn’s glass shatters as he bounds to his feet with a venomous, “ _ You! _ ”

"Me,” Mara confirms, smiling openly. She shifts her attention to the courtesan. “My dear, I hope you took his credits up front.”

“Of course,” she replies, her tone carefully professional. “And he didn’t pay for a double booking.”

“I imagine not. Allow me to make up for that oversight.” She pulls a credit chip from her utility belt and adds what is probably triple this woman’s nightly rate before handing it over. “For your inconvenience, and the rental of the room.”

“This doesn’t cover damages if one of you dies in here.”

“Bloodshed is not my current goal, unless someone forces my hand.” She locks eyes with the Jedi, who is radiating enough fury to fill the room if it were a liquid. “But if it becomes necessary, I’ll happily compensate the house for all damages and then some.”

The woman looks between them, nods, and leaves the room. Mara waits a moment before keying the lock. 

“I’m certain the Jedi Order frowns on this,” she says. 

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” he replies, ignoring her needling.

“Yes.” 

He exhales slowly, his nostrils flaring with the force of it. “Justice is done.”

“Sith are not in the business of justice. You knew that and you gave me their names all the same.”

“Call it what you want. We both know it was right.”

He’s not wearing a weapon, she realizes, and he’s traded his Jedi greys for nondescript civilian clothing. He’s hiding.

She looks around the room ostentatiously. “And what do you call this little adventure? Stress relief?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

Mara frowns, genuinely confused, examining an exquisite tapestry hanging on the wall. “Know what?”

She freezes when she turns and sees the full force of his glare. He’s a hair’s breadth from launching himself at her, whether to fight or to fuck, she can’t say. And she doubts he knows, either.

“On Balmorra, when you- you  _ knew _ what it would do.”

Mara feels her lips curl in a smile as realization sets in and that fleeting hunger she’s dismissed again and again in the past month flares with a vengeance. “Left you tossing and turning in your cave, did I? Filled with naughty thoughts?”

She’d intended to simply gloat and torment him a bit over the death of his fellows. But now that she’s here and she can feel the sheer weight of his emotions pressing in on her, she can barely think.

“I am  _ better  _ than this.” His voice is desperate. “Jedi have control over these urges.”

“Then prove it,” she says, stepping to the side, well out of his path to the door. 

Silence presses in on her eardrums as he trudges toward the door, moving as if he has to force each step. To her disappointment, he makes it, his hand is raised to unlock the door. She tries and fails to hold in a dejected sigh.

He freezes as if she fired a blaster. For the first time, Mara feels him brush against her mental shielding.

“This isn’t just a game to you, is it?” he asks slowly without turning. His voice holds an icy calm that sends a shiver up her spine. “You want me.”

Oh gods. She forces herself to breathe, forces herself to smirk. “All Sith want to corrupt all Jedi. You’re not special, just easily flustered.”

“How does it feel?” he asks, ignoring her words and turning fiery blue eyes on her, “Knowing you want a Jedi badly enough you’ll excuse his role in your mother’s death.”

“I will  _ never _ excuse that,” she snarls, taking a step forward. Her hatred flares along with he desire that’s starting to blunt her thoughts.

“And I will never forgive you for what you’ve made me.”

She has no idea who grabs the other first. It’s a blur of movement and fingers digging into flesh and then he’s kissing her. It’s not a gesture of intimacy; he’s devouring her and his sense is slamming into hers, a cascade of fury and self loathing and unmitigated lust that makes her moan into his mouth. 

He hears and yanks her head back with a handful of her hair. His other hand makes quick work of her belt and slides into her trousers, probing beneath her underwear to the undeniable proof of her arousal. He teases his fingers over her slit and she groans, then cries out in protest when he pulls his hand out of her clothes.

“Do you want me to continue?” he asks, eyes cruel. “Tell me you want your Jedi to fuck you.”

“How many times have you been here that you know exactly what to do?” she growls back, shoving him backward until he collapses onto the caf table. She follows, landing on him with a knee to either side of his hips, pressing herself purposely against his erection. “How many times have you dreamt of your cock inside me?”

He bucks against her, glaring murder up at her as she swirls her hips mercilessly. His mouth falls open in a stubbornly silent moan. 

She grabs his chin and leans down to nip at his lower lip. “You can’t ruin me if I ruin you first, Malavai.”

He does make a sound, then: a furious growl. One arm grips her waist painfully, the other hand closes around her neck and he flips her over with his hips. The caf table isn’t wide enough and she falls to the floor with a bone-jarring thud. Her pained groan is cut off with a gasp when he lands on top of her. 

His hand is back in her trousers tormenting her clit. Despite the grip on her neck, she furiously shoves them down her legs, desperate to give him access and just as desperate not to say so outright. But he knows. As soon as her cunt is bared to him he slams two fingers into her and she keens.

He fucks her roughly, ignoring her clit now as she mewls and thrusts her hips, trying to brush her nub against the heel of his palm and he evades her. 

“Ask,” he barks. “Ask for what you want.”

Oh gods she wants to. Her hand has wandered down to his trousers and the part of him that had lain dormant for the prostitute is now straining for her. She squeezes him gently, grinning at the tortured sound that tears from his throat.

“Make me scream and I’ll return the favor.” 

It’s not the begging he wants, but apparently it’s enough. He tears his fingers out of her and she whimpers at the sudden emptiness, but he’s taken his hands from her to wrestle his own trousers off.

“The rest of your clothes,” he snaps as he tugs his tunic over his head. She obeys, ripping her clothes from her body. When he yanks her to her feet she uses the momentum to leap against him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He grunts as he catches her with an arm under each thigh. The sound turns into a moan as her cunt kisses his cock. 

She barely hears him. His skin sears against hers and she’s seriously surprised she hasn’t burst into flame. The scent of him, the friction of his sense twisting against hers, ready to burst… she digs her nails into his back and writhes against him mindlessly.

“Fuck me,” she growls, just barely making it a command, not a plea. “Fuck your Sith.”

He lifts her enough for his cock to find her entrance. She’s so wet he practically slides into her by accident. Her moaned  _ yes  _ is accompanied by his cursing. He stumbles forward, catching them with the Force, before he pins her against the wall.

“Fucking- hells-” he grits, his face buried between her breasts. He pulls out and thrusts into her once and she cries out. 

Oh gods is it something about him specifically or the titilating triumph of ruining a Jedi that makes her feel like she’s fucking a live wire, all heat and searing pleasure so intense it verges on pain? 

He sets a bruising pace, slamming her into the wall with each thrust and somehow managing to adjust his angle until she’s shrieking curses at him, ordering him onward as her body shakes, the pleasure twisting in her until it explodes in a shower of sparks.

She screams like she said she would, and it’s not an affectation. He keeps fucking her. He’s buried in her to the hilt and still rutting against her, his cock rubbing against her inner walls and finding reaches in her she never knew existed. Only then does it occur to her she’s never fucked a Force user. Other Sith aren’t safe.

_ Because this is? _ she thinks and just barely keeps from laughing out loud. That would be rude and she can feel herself spiraling toward a second brain-breaking orgasm.

And he’s close. She can feel it in the uncontrolled trembling of his muscles and the shiver of his sense. She grabs his hair and pulls his head to the side so she can flick his earlobe with her tongue.

“Come for me, Master Jedi,” she murmurs into his ear.

He does.

He groans and spills into her, buried so deep she can feel it when he comes. But it’s secondary to the abject shattering of his sense as he loses control entirely, or how he looks up at her as it happens, hands digging into her flesh as if trying to ground himself.

It sets her off again and she moans his name, shaking against him and whimpering as she comes down from that high.

For an interminable moment, they’re quiet together, he’s leaning into her four-limbed embrace, panting in time with her. They could be lovers if you squint hard enough.

He apparently comes to the same realization and jerks away from her, horror spreading over his perfect face. She has to catch herself from falling, he pulls away so fast. 

“Not many people can fuck me senseless,” she says. “Congratulations.”

He glares at her, and there’s something so lost in his expression she almost takes pity on him. Almost. He got her mother killed and he’s the latest in a long line of people who want to see people like her extinct.

“You did this on purpose,” he accuses her.

Mara looks around the room at their discarded clothes. “So did you.” She smiles as she feels the mess they made coating her inner thighs. “You enjoyed me and you hate yourself for it.”

In truth that should probably go both ways, and Mara has enough sense to know she’s going to have some rather uncomfortable emotions as soon as the endorphins recede. 

But this is far worse for him. Good.

“Fuck you.” 

“You just did.”

He’s shaking as he gathers up his clothes. “I can’t- this can never happen again.” 

Well, obviously. This was an act of war, not a relationship. 

If it also happened to be the most thrilling sex of her life, well. She’s Sith, she can find that elsewhere, can’t she?

***

Usually, Quinn has no complaints about the sonic shower on his ship. It’s perfectly servicable, and a necessity given the complicated logistics of carrying liquid water through space.

But he’s not usually filthy from fucking a Sith.

His ship hurtles through hyperspace toward Coruscant. It’s been over a day and he’s showered at least three times since leaving Nar Shaddaa. He knows that, logically, her scent can’t possibly have lingered on him through that. He tells himself he’s acting irrationally, allowing his sensory brain to rule his existence.

But it follows him everywhere, wafting through his ship like a spiced, teakwood ghost. It tickles across the back of his neck when he meditates, snuggles malevolently with him in his bunk when he sleeps.

He’ll incinerate the clothes he wore to the… the  _ brothel _ , he forces himself to think the word, as soon as he gets home, and he’ll scrub himself raw in a water shower. That will be the end of it. 

And then he’ll figure out how the hell he can do enough good to cancel out his shame.


	5. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn returns to Nar Shaddaa. For Reasons. And he's shocked to realize he's not alone in his inability to shake the aftertaste of his ill-advised dalliance with his Sith. Content notes for self harm apply toward the end of the chapter.

Two months later, Quinn steps out of the spaceport and hails a taxi for Nar Shaddaa’s Red Light district. His clothes are as nondescript as his ship, meant to blend into the moon’s gaudy underbelly without drawing too much attention. His lightsaber is stowed in his cabin. It’s simpler that way, and he’s not exactly defenseless without it. 

Frankly, if he’s recognized he has no idea what he’ll do save for leap off of whatever ledge is closest to him.

He snaps at the taxi droid when it tries to engage a smalltalk protocol and it falls blissfully silent. He’s not here for companionship. He’s here because he’s so embarrassingly weak-willed it had only taken one taste of that Force-cursed Sith woman to start a craving he’s been unable to wrestle into submission.

He has no idea what she did, what it is  _ about  _ her that is so all-consuming. It’s not the sex; he’s no innocent, no matter what the stereotype about Jedi may suggest. But previous encounters had always felt purely biological. Something he enjoyed enough in the moment but easily left behind.

But this? She left an aftertaste. No matter how much he meditates, how many other ways he punishes himself, his sleep is filled with the taste of her sweat and the sound of his name falling from her lips when she came. Heat and slick and  _ need _ .

And so he’s back at that same establishment as before. He knows, with deep shame, it won’t be nearly as difficult to entice him to action this time. Frustrated erections have become a mainstay of his existence. But he hopes this will break the cycle, that he’ll relearn to think of sexual pleasure as a transaction. A biological necessity to be tended to rather than a hunger to be fed.

Something familiar gnaws the back of his mind as he checks in and enters the plush parlor. A playfully wicked presence that…  _ no. _ Just. No.

His pleas to the universe go unanswered. He turns in time to see a Nautolan man and a Cathar woman escorting his Sith back into the parlor. She’s dressed almost as scandalously as her escorts, a sheer black gown that leaves absolutely nothing of her muscles and ridges to the imagination but does make him wonder how the silky fabric would feel sliding against his skin.

There’s a languor in her body that tells him she’s recently been well-fucked and he deliberately refuses to think of that as a challenge. 

She goes rigid with surprise before her eyes scan the room to find him. And it’s an unwelcome demonstration of how well they can sense each other that he knows exactly what runs through her mind in the next heartbeat. Shock. Shame. Then, defiance. Why should she feel ashamed when she’s done nothing to break her order’s rules?

She stretches on tiptoe to kiss each of her escorts and then she’s sauntering toward Quinn, who remains rooted in place.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she drawls, clearly enjoying every second of his discomfort. 

He hangs onto calm by a thread. “What are you doing here?”

“Availing myself of these lovely artists’ services, same as you,” she replies.

She’s lying. Oh, she certainly enjoyed the company she just abandoned, but he knows by the flush in her red skin and the heat rolling off her sense that she wasn’t here  _ for _ them anymore than he is.

It’s a small comfort but he’ll take what he can get at the moment.

“I can’t imagine you needed to come all this way for sex,” he says, letting himself shift into her personal space, “unless you were looking for something specific. Pleasant memories, perhaps?”

Her sharp intake of air lights a fire in his blood. As does the helpless anger in her eyes when she growls, “ _ Fuck  _ you, you self important-”

“No thank you,” he interrupts her. He has no idea where the will to say those words came from, but it’s worth it for how her mouth falls open in outrage. 

Is this how Sith feel when they get under a Jedi’s skin? If so, he can reluctantly admit he sees the appeal. She’s so enchantingly petulant, as if no one dares tell her no in her usual life. 

Even more thrilling is her genuine disappointment because, for all her mockery, the desire under her words is real. He’s marked her as much as she marked him, and he’s reveling in the power of it. Then she slowly closes her mouth and her posture relaxes, her lips curling in a smile that’s so filled with promise it’s positively indecent that she uses it in public.

“You’ve gotten better at this game,” she purrs. Her approval is both insulting and stimulating. “But I will win, if you persist.”

“Try me,” he says, and he knows he’s consenting to more than just banter.

She leans close, her practically naked body brushing against his, and whispers, “I need my Jedi to fuck me.”

Oh, that’s not  _ fair _ . 

He pays for the full night this time and they make use of every single second in a way he imagines only two Force-users can: relentlessly. His refractory periods are short and spent with his face buried in her cunt, the friction of her grinding on his face a surefire method of getting him hard again. She is absolutely insatiable, devouring everything he gives her and demanding more. It’s as if she’s trying to bury herself in the fucking, shut out the rest of the world.

This is confirmed later when they finally call a halt. The sun is peeking over the horizon and Quinn is certain he’s been drained to the last drop, and she looks so disheveled and  _ used _ it almost makes him want to fuck her again.

“Are you truly glad they’re dead?” she asks, not looking at him.

“Yes.” He doesn’t need her to specify who ‘they’ are. “I wish they hadn’t earned the execution you gave them, but there should be consequences to their actions. The Council failed when it failed to punish them.”

She’s silent, her sense a swirl of emotion as she contemplates his words. “You should have known better,” she says bitterly. “Your order hunted us to near extinction once. You should have known there would be no appetite to observe the niceties of war when it comes to us.”

“Perhaps. I have to believe the Council is capable of better. We can’t become what we say our enemies are.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a Jedi and I want to be better than that.”

“Even now?” she asks, her hand brushing his bare thigh. 

He sighs. Reality, like the sun, starts to bleed into this odd bubble they’ve created. “My weakness isn’t getting people killed.” The unspoken  _ yet _ hangs in the air.

She nods as if she heard it anyway. “You’re going to go back and flagellate yourself for this, aren’t you? For falling for your Sith temptress again.”

He doesn’t answer. It’s humiliating she knows him that well.

“Would it help if I hurt you first?” 

That his cock can  _ still  _ stir after all that, that she still has that power over him, is chilling. But he nods mutely, not because he thinks it will help, but because he’s curious what she’ll do. 

She kisses him. It’s so tender it’s almost wrong - theirs is not a tender association. But he leans into it anyway, his need driving him as it has ever since he tasted her lips the first time. Her hand rubs soothing circles over his shoulder and upper arm.

Just when he’s relaxed into her embrace, she rakes her nails down his chest.

He yelps into her mouth and four lines of fire bloom in his flesh. He shoves her back and stares down at the bloody gashes. Enough to require tending, but not so bad as to be life-threatening. 

“Take care of them or don’t,” she says, getting up and grabbing his holo comm, “but find me again when they heal.”

He hears a faint beep as she programs her frequency into the device and drops it.


	6. Settling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara continues her ill-advised affair with Jedi Quinn, with some highly unintended consequences. Edik realizes there's something odd about Mara's frequent "missions". Content notes for scars and self harm apply, and we're introducing some anal sex to the mix this time around.

Mara’s not precisely sure when Malavai becomes a habit. All she knows is that, as the months stretch on, he accumulates an impressive number of scars on his chest and back thanks to her nails. The rest of her life fades to greys and beiges in between their trysts.

Their encounters also venture out of that Nar Shaddaa brothel, to gaudy hotels on the Promenade that tint their skin odd colors thanks to the pervasive neon lighting, to filthy hostels on neutral planets, a luxury suite on Makeb, and finally, to a tiny cottage in Naboo’s lake country.

She’s lying on her side, tracing the scars on his chest with her fingers and lips, and plotting where to put the wounds from this trip, when he chuckles.

“I don’t know why you like them so much.”

She pauses and looks up into those absurdly blue eyes. “_You_ chose to keep them,” she points out. Scar removal is a simple process.

“Only because you like them,” he insists, and Mara knows he’s lying. She can feel his thoughts now, how he enjoys carrying proof of their illicit secret with him wherever he goes.

But he’s also right. The sight of the scars is enough to get her wet, both because he enjoys them, and because of the possessive thrill of marking him as hers.

“Because you’re _my_ Jedi,” she replies, voice dropping to an intimate growl.

“And what makes you my Sith?” he counters. His voice is playful, but she pauses with her hand halfway down his belly.

“The fact that I keep coming back?” she suggests, knowing it’s a rather weak comeback compared to the marks on his body.

“Ah, but I keep calling you back,” he says. “We’re not even.”

Mara licks her lips. “I’m not categorically opposed, Malavai, but…” she trails off, suddenly, inexplicably embarrassed. “I’m sure my husband would notice.”

That sucks all the air out of the room.

“Your husband.” A brittle pause. “You’re married?”

“Of course I’m married,” she replies, sitting up so she can see him properly.

“Why wouldn’t you have said something before now?” he demands, blue eyes flashing.

“I didn’t think it mattered.” She reaches for his hand. Truth be told, during her jaunts to meet Malavai she forgets that Edik exists, even though Edik holding down the metaphorical fort is what allows her these freedoms in the first place.

“Of course it matters."

"Do you really need me to be married to know this is all we can ever share?" she asks, incredulous.

"No," he snaps. "But I don’t have- ” Malavai pulls away from her, angry and curling in on himself. “I’m not fucking anyone else, Mara.”

“Neither am I.”

He gives her a withering glare. “That may be the poorest lie you’ve ever told.”

“It’s the truth. Edik and I did not marry for love or passion.” He flinches when she gives Edik’s name. "We're business partners. He doesn't even fancy women. Malavai,” she says gently, turning his face to hers. “I swear on my mother’s memory.”

That softens his face a little. “Then how would he know what I do to your body?”

“Nudity is not purely sexual. And I have certain obligations. Any persistent scarring will be noted on my medical file.”

“Obligations.” He freezes again. “Children.”

“Artificially inseminated,” she adds.

“But still. You’ll have his children.”

Mara shrugs. “He’s Red Sith. I’m Red Sith. Our species is going extinct, Malavai. Someone has to have children.”

He’s silent, fiddling with the sheet and Mara throws up her hands. Why is she trying to soothe him anyway? This is a fucking-only arrangement. The fact that it’s currently monogamous is an accident, not design.

“Whose children should I have, Malavai, yours?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“You started it.”

His nostrils flare in annoyance and his eyes flash. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

There’s a tendril of desire in his sense. She seizes on it, keen to end this conversation. “You like it when I’m infuriating,” she purrs. “It means you get to correct me.”

He raises a dark brow. “I’m not rewarding this behavior.”

“Not even a little?” She slips a hand under the sheet to his cock, which has already decided where this conversation will go if it has a say. She strokes him, giving a knowing look when he thrusts into her hand. “Not even to teach me,” she squeezes and he gasps, “a bit of Jedi discipline?”

He growls and grabs her by the hair, bruising her mouth with a possessive kiss. When he shoves three fingers into her cunt, she moans, opening her legs to him. He’s rougher than he’s been in some time, not that she’s complaining. He fucks her cunt until she’s quivering and overstimulated, then flips her over and takes her ass as she frantically strums her clit. She’s still inordinately proud she’d introduced him to that particular activity. She likes having part of him that is hers alone.

She loses track of the number of orgasms they have and finally he spills into her ass one more time and collapses against her. She flattens under his weight, dripping his come onto her legs and the sheets and she’s too wrung out to care.

“Does anyone fuck you like I do?” he asks. It’s part demand, part insecure question. She’s almost certain the fact that he’s murmuring into her hair, not looking her in the eye, is the only reason he’s able to ask in the first place.

“No one,” she replies. An entire Empire of Sith to choose from and she finds the height of passion with a Jedi. With her face buried in the pillow, it’s easier to admit that. “It’s only you, Malavai.”

He curls around her and they drift off to sleep. She staunchly refuses to think about why she was so quick to assuage his fears, why she cares about his feelings.

She also completely misses the speeder that silently pulls away from the cottage as they’re falling asleep.

***

She gets back to Chwukusk in the wee hours of the morning and nearly jumps out of her skin when she finds Edik in her sitting room.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, heart immediately pounding.

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says carefully. Not denying, exactly, but she wants more information before she admits to anything.

He hands her a datapad, face impassive.

It’s an image of her in Malavai’s lap, her back to his chest and his cock conspicuously buried inside her. His hand is curled around her throat and he’s murmuring something in her ear.

There are more, mostly of them fucking in different positions, but the last one turns her knees to mush and she sinks into a chair.

She’s sitting on the counter in the cottage’s kitchen, a cup of caf in one hand, the other cradling Malavai’s cheek. He has a ridiculous smile on his face - how has she never noticed he looks at her like that? - and she… the Mother help her, she looks happy.

She shakes her head, shoving the image aside. It’s a lie, carefully manipulated holophotrography and nothing more.

The last screen is a dossier on one Jedi Master Malavai Quinn.

She had no idea he’d achieved that rank in his order. She’d never asked. It never mattered.

Except of course it matters. He’s a Jedi Master. She forces herself to meet Edik’s furious glare. She has no idea what to say. There isn’t anything to say.

Fortunately, Edik spares her the trouble. “How long?” he demands. “How long have you been letting this-” he cuts off, as if his fury is choking him.

She counts back, and her eyes widen. When she answers, her voice is barely above a whisper. “Two years.”

Edik swears fluently in Sith.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she insists. “I’ve not broken our agreement. I only wanted to ruin him.”

“By ruining yourself?”

“I have not-”

“Huelwen graduated the Academy last month. Did you even notice?”

Mara stares in confusion. “She’s not graduating until… oh.” How has the time gotten away from her so badly?

“Oh,” he agrees. “And that doesn’t cover the number of business meetings you’ve missed. People think I’m the head of this house now, Mara, and given the work I’m putting in, they’re not wrong.”

She bristles. “How dare-”

“You don’t like it? Then stop treating some Jedi dog like he’s more important than your responsibilities here.”

“I don’t love him,” she says, her voice desperate, then claps a hand over her mouth in shock. Where the hell did that come from?

Edik’s yellow eyes widen and his anger flares. “You don’t love me, either.”

No she doesn’t.

“But that’s not the issue,” he continues. “Do you really think this affair won’t hurt us? Won’t hurt you? If I sent someone to investigate where you go, I can guarantee you someone else has at least considered it. What do you think will happen if these,” he yanks the datapad from her with the Force, “were splashed across the holonet?”

That gets her attention. “Edik, I’m sorry, I-”

“Save it,” he growls. “There are only two choices here. End it, and I’ll pretend I never saw these. I’ll protect you and this house. But I’ll know if you persist. You drew up the contract yourself, you know what happens if you’re in breach.”

He’d get everything. Her house, both the political unit and the physical buildings. Her fortune. Everything her family has built. She’d added those harsh penalties to protect herself against his possible betrayal, not to box herself in as she apparently has.

She’s shaking, she realizes. Edik sees it too and he sighs, some of his anger evaporating with the rush of air.

“Do you know why I agreed to this arrangement?” he asks.

“Business,” she answers automatically. “And your mother is a harridan.”

He shakes his head. “You think I’d have tied myself to Sivak or one of the lesser houses for similar business advantages or to assuage my mother? No.” He leans forward, yellow eyes holding hers. “Thrask is legendary. Your mother and aunts command more respect than half the order combined. And you- you are their heir, both literally and symbolically. I wanted to tie Szkania to strength, and to see that strength in my children.”

But I never wanted a political marriage. Not really. She freezes for a moment, afraid she spoke aloud, but Edik’s sense remains steady.

She can’t relax, though. Looking at Edik - brilliant, patient Edik - and her home, it suddenly crystallizes that she doesn’t want this. What she wants is probably back in the Core by now, nursing the superficial wounds she left on him.

Would Malavai want anything even remotely similar? Thinking of the smile that holo inadvertently captured, it feels within the realm of possibility. But she can’t shatter her entire life on a guess. But meeting him again will shatter her entire life.

“Your children will have that strength, Edik,” she says finally. “I swear it.”

One way or another, she’ll honor that promise. Because Edik has done nothing wrong, if she’s honest with herself. And because it’s her obligation to her species.


	7. Hypocrisies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn is sent to Yavin IV as part of the Republic's delegation to deal with the Revanites. Mara makes an ill-timed proposition.

The scratches on Quinn’s stomach are only just healed when he’s ordered to Yavin IV by Satele Shan herself, along with the majority of the combat specialists in the Jedi Order. It seems an absurd move - Yavin IV is an ancient part of the Empire, firmly in Imperial space. Whatever they’re doing there, he can’t imagine their enemy won’t take notice and send a sizeable force in answer.

He briefly wonders if this will be the mission where he and Mara meet as enemy combatants. They’ve never talked about it, just like they don’t talk about the missions they know the other is carrying out against their respective governments. It’s odd, he knows the names of her extended family, how she likes her caf, the fact that she enjoys hikes so long as it’s not too hot out. But he has no idea if she’ll hesitate to run him through on the battlefield.

To be fair, he has no idea if he’d hesitate, either.

Those fears are replaced by entirely different fears when he finally lands on the planet and finds himself standing in stone ruins with not just Republic troops and other Jedi, but Imperial troops and Sith. Beige and grey versus black and red, both groups glaring at each other like territorial nexu. The air crackles with potential conflict, but no one acts on it.

The reason is clear during the first joint briefing, a surreal affair led by Master Shan and Darth Marr. The Sith Emperor has turned on his own people, and now the Empire is prepared to rid itself of the tyrant. Deserters from both sides are on Yavin with the goal of releasing the Emperor to kill him, a plan destined to fail.

A wild thought flashes through his mind as they assign duties: perhaps they won’t have to hide much longer. If the Empire and Republic align against a mutual foe, he and Mara could finally-

_ What? _ His subsconscious demands. _ Move in together to raise her husband’s children? Grow up, Malavai. _

Thinking of her is a mistake, because through the viscous, dark presence that is the Emperor and the gathered emotions of thousands of troops, her familiar essence pushes to the fore: a smirk in the Force, all arrogance and illicit promise. 

She’s here. 

He swallows noisily, sternly keeping his body from reacting how it usually does to her presence, eyes scanning the gathered throng as the briefing breaks up. 

There. On the other side of the gathering, as far away from him as she can get, her circlet and amber eyes flash when they meet his. Her lips twitch, and her sense reaches for his. It’s the closest they can get to an embrace, and he’s shocked at how _ comforting _ that metaphysical caress is. Then she looks away, turning her attention to a human woman whose eyes are that same amber gold, and the spell is broken.

That’s the extent of their contact for the next couple of weeks as their duties take them to different spheres of the camp - he to working with the logistics and analysis portions of the Republic Army, she on patrol with ostensibly integrated teams that always come back separated by faction. 

The polite distance is maddening but necessary. Petty squabbles continue to break out between the two armies, enough that anyone seeing a Jedi and Sith talking amicably would be suspicious, to say nothing of seeing two sneak off together.

Until one morning when he’s going over scouting reports and catches a bit of idle gossip. Two soldiers are walking past.

“Rumor is Agent Shan snuck into the Battlemaster’s tent last night.”

A snort in reply. “Nerfshit. You think he’d go near a Jedi after his mother practically disowned him? You think his mother would _ let him _ get near her favorite protege?.”

They’re gone before Quinn can hear anything else, but it doesn’t matter because the roaring of blood has filled his ears.

Of course he suspected a connection between the Grand Master and Agent Theron Shan. But families can be sprawling things - their relationship need not be close.

But no. He’s her son. 

This whole time he’s been wallowing in his shame, punishing himself for every exquisite moment spent with his Sith, but the leader of his own order had birthed a son and gone on like nothing happened? Preached control and detachment as if she’d never struggled with it herself?

“I’m going for a walk,” he says to no one in particular, dropping the datapad on a crate and leaving the analysts to their work. 

He storms through the ruins, not paying attention to his footfalls, relying on the Force to guide him away from anything truly life-threatening. All too soon the camp is lost in the jungle behind him.

He can’t quite fathom why he’s so angry. It’s not as though Satele Shan’s weakness renders the Jedi Code moot. It still applies, it’s still _ correct _.

Unless it’s not. Unless Jedi stray from it precisely because it’s not an accurate model for how to interact with the Force. 

And why should Master Shan get to lead the Order, apparently guilt free, while he’s so wrapped in shame he can barely enjoy what little time he gets with the woman he-

His thoughts stumble over each other, refusing to complete the sentence. Gods, was he really about to think that? About a Sith, no less?

The Force sears his mind in warning. He drops to the ground. A nasty-looking spear slashes through the empty air where he’d been just a moment prior. He rolls to his feet and finds four Massassi arrayed around him. With his back to a cliffside, he’s neatly boxed in.

One of them growls at him in their guttural language.

“I’m not here to hurt you, but I will defend myself,” he says firmly, his hand drifting toward his blade. “Let me pass and this doesn’t have to get ugly.”

The one that spoke growls again, taking a menacing step forward. 

And freezes when an amber-orange blade pierces his chest. He drops, revealing Lord Mara Thrask. Her stance is unconscious perfection. Quinn doesn’t get to see her fight anymore, and he’d forgotten how _ magnificent _ she is in combat. 

She says something to the Massassi in their own language, her face and mouth contorting to make the harsh sounds. Whatever she says, they advance on her. Quinn is quick to ignite his own blade, and soon they’re shoulder to shoulder. They take down two of the three and the last gets close enough to slam his massive fist into Mara’s gut. 

She cries out.

Quinn’s attention whips to her at the sound - he’s never heard her in pain before. She crumples and the Massassi raises his weapon. 

Quinn beheads him before the blow can fall. Mara’s already straightening. 

“What happened?” he asks, closing down his weapon and placing a hand on her arm.

“I had a minor surgery before this crisis broke out. It’ll pass,” she answers, her face relaxing as she says the words. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“You’re alone.”

“Yes, but I trained in the jungle and I know how to deal with the Massassi.” 

She smirks and suddenly it occurs to him that _ they _ are alone, outside the camp, outside of sensor range. The cooling corpses around them are the only signs of sentient or even animal life nearby.

The hand on her arm shifts up to grab the back of her head and he kisses her. She melts against him, her sense curling around his.

“Gods, I’ve missed you,” he whispers, nipping at her earlobe and grinning at how she gasps and her fingers slide through his hair. “These weeks have been torture. Seeing you,” he’s already working on the buckle of her utility belt, “feeling you. But not tasting you.”

“Malavai,” she whimpers. It’s the usual need, but something else flashes beneath it: fear.

He pauses in his attempt to get his own trousers open, searching her face. “Mara? Do you want me to stop?”

She bites her lower lip, her breath coming in the short bursts he associates with her arousal. She hesitates so long he’s sure she’s about to say yes. Then, “no. But we must be quick- _ oh _!”

She gasps when his fingertips find her cunt. She’s so deliciously wet he can’t help sliding a finger into her, teasing her. She throws whatever reservations she had to the wilderness and finishes what he started in freeing his cock from his trousers, her gloved hand an entirely new sensation as she strokes him.

He growls, gathering her to him greedily, lifting her with an arm under each thigh, pressing her into the rock cliffside. In this moment, he needs her like he needs oxygen, and when he hilts himself in her core, the heat is like the first breath after hours under water. Her fingers tighten in his hair, the leather of her boots creaking as she her feet curl with pleasure.

“Yes,” she sighs, grinding against him as best she can with her legs pinned awkwardly between them. “Malavai, please.”

He gives her what she’s asking for. He doesn’t hold back, knowing at any moment they could be found by predators or Massassi or Revanites or their own patrols. That should give him pause, and he _ is _ exquisitely aware of their surroundings as he drives into her, but he’s also aware this may be the only chance they get and he will not waste it.

The muscles in her neck tighten and she presses her lips together to contain what would have been a scream but comes out as a desperate squeal. He can feel her spasm around him and lets himself go, his orgasm wracking his body to the point that he’s pretty sure she steadies him with the Force to keep from falling over.

There’s no time for blissed-out niceties, unfortunately, so he pulls out of her as she kisses him, supporting her weight as she lowers her feet to the ground.

When they’re both buttoned up, so to speak, she asks, “I was on patrol, but what brought you out here?” 

He growls and tells her what he’s learned. To his surprise, she laughs. “I thought you knew. Everyone on our side knows. It’s hilarious.”

“I’m glad you can enjoy our institutionalized hypocrisy,” he snaps, walking away. 

She grabs his arm, and when she draws even with him, her face is serious. “That was thoughtless of me. And given who we’re here to stop, perhaps we shouldn’t enjoy Satele Shan’s past so much.” She grimaces then, “The Dark Council knew about Vitiate’s plan. To devour the galaxy.”

He freezes. “And they did nothing?”

“He fell silent after the war. I suppose they hoped he moved on.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. She presses on, “This information about Satele Shan. It makes you feel differently? About the Jedi Order?”

His eyes narrow. “What are you getting at?”

Amber eyes slide away from his. “Would you consider leaving it?”

She says it so quietly he almost can’t hear her. Then he can’t believe he heard correctly. 

“_ What? _ Mara, I’m a Jedi. I can’t just-”

“Edik knows.” When she turns back to him, there’s real fear in her eyes. “He knows about us. He knows what you are. Just being with you _ now _... Malavai, I could lose everything.”

“So you want _ me _ to give up everything? And join a group of murderers who let their monster of a leader wreak havoc out of fear?” He can’t believe they’re having this conversation. And how _ dare _ she intimate her connections to her culture are stronger than his connection to his.

“We’re fighting him, Malavai,” she snarled. “You have no idea how much that blasphemes against everything we’ve ever believed in.”

“Oh good. Gold star for the Sith Order. Let’s play this little thought experiment out, shall we? I give up everything I believe in to join you.”

“Malavai, please,” she begins.

“And what, pray tell would I be?” he asks, talking over her. “The third wheel in your fucked up marriage? Nanny to your perfectly-engineered Red Sith babies? Your odd pet?”

“All you had to say is no,” she snaps, stepping away from him. “I just thought, given everything-”

“That you could continue this without consequences?” He steps closer, leaning into her personal space. Some part of his mind is aware he’s disproportionately angry, but the rest of him doesn’t care. “You don’t get to play the good Sith and sneak off to fuck your Jedi consequence-free.” Is that meant for her, for Satele Shan, or for him? He’s not sure. Either way, he finds himself smiling at the cruelty dripping from his words. “Do you hear me? You can’t. Have. Both.”

She jerks away like he’s slapped her. No. If he’d slapped her he’s certain he’d be bleeding right now. He has no context for the way she’s looking at him now. He had no idea he could _ hurt her _. He firmly shoves away the regret that threatens to swallow his anger. No. This is a good thing, for both of them.

“I only thought you could be happier with me.”

He gives a bitter laugh. “You don’t make me happy, Mara. You make me weak.”

The essence of her in the Force dims. She’s closed her mind against him. Good.

Pain shorts out his vision when she punches him in the face. He blinks and flexes his jaw carefully, then looks at her. She’s once again the Sith from Herdessa. Older, more seasoned, but without being able to brush her mind, it’s all surface. Cold. Evil.

Except for the way she presses her lips together to keep them from trembling.

“I should have killed you on Herdessa.”

“Are you going to kill me now?” he taunts. Part of him wants her to.

“Why would I waste my blade on something that means so little?” she asks, sneering. “You couldn’t even get a simple assassination right; you won’t last a day in the jungle.”

She shoves past him and marches back toward the base.

***

Mara manages to hold herself together through the walk back to base, her debriefing, and long enough to get to the shower facilities set up for Imperial troops. Shower time is strictly limited, but being Sith has its privileges, and today she stays under the water for at least double her allotted five minutes, scrubbing herself raw as if she can remove all vestiges of Malavai’s presence.

And she can, to a point. But no amount of soap can make her forget what his kisses taste like, the feel of his laughter reverberating in his chest, and how he enjoys Alderaanian food more than most other cuisines. 

But she tries anyway. And if some of the liquid on her face isn’t from the shower head, at least no one else will know. All the while, the bruise low on her abdomen, where the Massassi hit her, throbs. She’d had some of her eggs frozen, just in case… well. It makes no difference now.

She’ll get this mission done and she’ll go home. It’s time to wake up.


	8. Fog of Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We skip ahead a year. Mara has given birth to twins, an heir and a spare in one go, and is struggling with her new life. Quinn has joined the Sixth Line and accompanies the squadron on a secret mission to Ziost. Everything Is Fine. Content notes for pregnancy, mention of childbirth, postpartum depression, and mind control (yay we're at Ziost) apply.

_ Dromund Kaas, 1343 Imperial _

Maranel Thrask is a model Sith. Head of an ancient house with an impeccably bred husband on her arm. And now with an impeccably bred infant on each breast.

Implanting the embryos felt strangely noninvasive, and Mara kicks herself now for thinking her sanguine attitude toward that procedure was a harbinger of things to come. Now, she knows the unmitigated invasion of feeling another being - two other beings, because of course they’re twins - growing inside her, expanding until she felt like a stranger in her own body, and they its rightful owners. The movement and hiccups and primitive feelings that aren’t her own. 

Childbirth had been a relief. A hellacious, shrieking relief. Physical pain is a teacher, a friend practically. She can process that.

Intimacy and emotional pain are a different story entirely.

Even now, the tether of intimacy endures and she still isn’t wholly mistress of her own body. The ridges on her chest and her nipples have thickened in defense against the razor-sharp teeth of fussy Red Sith infants, but that only means she doesn’t bleed when they bite. It still hurts. Still leaves her with the urge to thrust the children at someone, _ anyone _ better suited to this than she.

Huelwen and the younger cousins have begun doting on the boys already, and Edik and Innan are ecstatic. And that, really, is the only thing that gives Mara any measure of comfort in this process. Her offspring will have two fathers and a proverbial village of extended relations to give them the love they deserve and need, even if she can’t provide it herself. 

It sounds awful as she thinks it, but looking down at the infants in her arms, she can’t seem to summon something so warm and binding as _ love _. The closest she can come is an odd pride of craftsmanship. They’re healthy and perfect specimens of two of the most ancient remaining Sith houses, and she made them. Edik, the Mother bless him, didn’t do a damn thing but provide materials, as agreed.

But they’re not _ hers _. She’s seen holos of Edik as a baby, and House Szkania is written all over the twins, from Edik’s painfully bright yellow eyes to the red tinge in the dark curls on their heads. They are their father’s sons.

She looks down to see they’ve both drunk themselves to sleep. Judging by how heavy she feels, they likely didn’t eat enough. She’ll be awake again in a couple of hours, either due to their fussing or her breasts declaring a painful mutiny against milk production. Stars she’d love to sleep for more than two hours in a go. Just once. For old time’s sake.

She can feel Edik outside the door and calls an entrance before he even knocks. She doesn’t bother closing her robe, and his eyes don’t so much as linger on her exposed flesh. No one’s eyes have lingered on her in nearly a year, not since… 

She squashes that train of thought before it can weave through her heightened hormonal state and really cause a problem. 

Edik knows, of course. She’d returned from Yavin and told him of her final tryst with Master Quinn. She’d obfuscated a few details - her tentative probing as to whether he might join the Sith, her depth of hurt when he refused her. But he knows it’s over. And he’s too observant not to realize that something deep within her is profoundly altered from the experience.

But then, no one escaped Yavin unscathed. Mara’s crisis of faith is perhaps unique in its particulars, but the overall experience is frequent in the Empire these days.

Edik helps her place the twins in their creches and hands her a datapad.

“New financials for the quarter,” he says, “and some interesting items from Sith Intelligence.”

Mara stares at the screen. She’s excited at the work, but it might as well be written in code for how the words penetrate her mind. “I’ll take a look later,” she sighs, pushing the datapad to the empty side of the bed. “After I’ve slept.”

Edik looks up from rocking each creche, the ludicrous smile on his face fading as his browstalks furrow in concern. “I can take them with me tonight. You need rest.”

“Unless your milk ducts have taken up production, I don’t see how that would help,” she snaps, temper flaring. One of the twins whimpers in his sleep, sensing her anger, and she forces herself to calm. Usually her control is better, but she’s so damned tired.

Edik said he wanted Thrask strength for his children. Neither of them thought it would be quite this literal. “Sorry,” she mutters.

He sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’ve booked an appointment for you with Doctor Talsi.”

“Edik I don’t need-”

“Yes, you do. I don’t think you could be a more textbook example of postpartum depression if you tried.”

“What am I supposed to tell her?” she asks, deflating. She can’t tell anyone but Edik the source of her emotional malaise, and even then not in detail. Not unless she wants to face at minimum an embarrassing scandal, at worst an investigation to determine if her liaisons constitute treason.

“Tell her you feel detached; tell her you find no joy in your life. I’m told that’s a frequent complaint after Yavin and the Emp- Vitiate’s betrayal. Tell her your husband is an overbearing boor who wasted her time in booking the appointment. But _ please _ talk to her.”

Mara sighs. Why can’t Edik be someone she can hate, rather than someone she truly considers a good friend? She has no idea if that would make any of this easier, but it would be an emotion to latch onto. She’s Sith, for fuck’s sake. To feel this empty is practically blasphemous. Which is the point he’s making, really. She sighs again.

“I’ll go. Send the information to my calendar.”

“Thank you.” He tries a tentative smile. “Innan’s friend is interested in meeting you, whenever you’re feeling up to it.”

“In between the never-ending feeding cycle and my duties here?” she counters. “No offense to his friend, but that just sounds like one more chore to balance.”

“Like I said, only if and when you feel up to it.” He leans over and kisses her forehead. “Get some sleep, before these monsters wake.”

He’s at the door when it opens and Innan, a slight Red Sith man, in comparison to Edik anyway, enters. Mara pulls her robe closed, annoyed. Innan may be a co-parent but they’re not on the same level of intimacy as she is with Edik, and even Edik knocks before entering her rooms.

She’s about to berate him but realizes he’s pale, as though a ghost has chased him into the room. 

“I apologize for the interruption, Lady Thrask, Edik,” his voice breaks on his lover’s name.

“What’s wrong?” Edik slides an arm around Innan, his voice soothing.

“Edik, I’m so sorry. Your- your mother is dead.”

Mara blinks. Edik goes completely still. 

Whatever he’s feeling, it overwhelms the twins. They start howling.

***

_ There is no contemplation, there is only duty. _

The Sixth Line is a breath of fresh air after years of pollution. At least, that’s how Quinn has come to think of it. Master Surro is a no-nonsense, fair commander. Their rules of engagement are simple, their missions clear-cut. And Quinn knows only too well how excessive _ contemplation _ has been the bane of his duty in the past.

Even Theron Shan proves to be a pleasant surprise. Not that Quinn likes the man, precisely, but he’s efficient and has a nose for tracking down the Empire’s schemes. It’s a good fit. 

And it’s a relief to _ finally _feel at home amongst his own people again, rather than with… well. That wasn’t home. That was an illusion, an attempt to seduce him to the dark side and he was a fool to have fallen for it.

The best part of joining The Sixth Line is that it keeps him busy. Even though it’s been a year since Yavin IV, Quinn still finds unwanted sensory memories creeping up on him if he’s idle for too long. Or, worse, an odd ache, like he’s missing something. Someone. 

It doesn’t help that he hasn’t had the scars removed. They’re one of the last things he sees before he sleeps and the first thing he sees when he wakes up. He _ will _ have them removed some day, as soon as he can slow down enough to have a more extended treatment. But for now, he deals with the inconvenience and doesn’t think about it too hard.

No contemplation. Only duty.

That duty now has taken them to the Imperial world of Ziost. The galaxy has been hunting the former Sith Emperor for over a year with no luck. But Agent Shan found _ something _ on Ziost worth investigating. Quinn doesn’t know how the hell Shan can get so far into Imperial space - he briefly entertained the idea that the agent might have a connection in the Empire similar to Quinn’s own, but the rumors about the Jedi Battlemaster have proven true and Shan doesn’t seem the type to sleep with both sides.

It doesn’t matter. He called, and now he’s leading their ship far deeper into enemy territory than Quinn’s ever been.

“Okay,” the agent says, stepping into the conference room. “I got intel that something weird is happening on Ziost. Reports of soldiers firing on civilian and slave populations in attacks that feel random.”

“That’s the Imps for you,” Surro replies. “Why are we getting involved?”

“Because the soldiers act like automatons, like something else is controlling them. And unaffected Imperial forces are trying to take out the automatons. Vitiate said the deaths on Yavin fed him, right? I think he’s doing the same thing to Ziost and we’re going to sneak in and take him down.”

“The six of us.” Surro is still dubious. She’s always pushed back on Shan so far as Quinn can tell. Not truly butting heads, but making sure his intel and plans are sound.

“Yeah, well Chancellor Suresh wasn’t interested in this intel; as long as Vitiate eats Imps, she’s fine with it. This mission is a complete black box.” He flashes a humorless smile, his implants flashing in the overhead lighting. “Also, we’re enough to take him out without feeding him too much if we fuck this up.”

“Colorful as ever,” Surro replies dryly. She looks around at each of them, pausing on Quinn for a moment. He takes no offense; he’s technically the most junior member of the team. “You heard the man; let’s plan to take down an emperor.”

It’s a good plan they come up with. In a just galaxy it would have worked. He remembers insisting that to himself as their ship plunges through Ziost’s atmosphere, right before he blacks out and sticky, tar-laden fingers start rifling through his mind.

***

It’s amazing the difference a month and regular sleep make. And a miraculous device that replicates her breast milk's nutritional content down to the tiniest micronutrient. Why she’d resisted using it for so long, Mara can’t really explain. Maybe some part of her wants a closer connection to the twins and recognizes feeding them as the best path toward that, all things considered. But it was making her miserable.

She doesn’t feel _ great _ now, but she feels… well. She _ feels _, and she’s eager to get back in the field. She’s in full armor, her utility belt lying on her desk, reviewing the skeletal briefing Sith Intelligence was willing to release to her. She’ll get something more detailed when she lands in New Adasta and can talk to Minister Beniko in person.

“Mara.”

She looks up to see Edik in the doorway. He looks haggard and exhausted. Despite not being terribly close to his mother, he’s taken her death hard. In fact, he should have been at his family’s estate going through her papers.

“You’re back early. The twins are fine,” she says, guessing at his disquiet. “They eat better for Innan than they ever did for me.”

“That’s not-” he sighs and closes the door to her office. “I need to talk to you.”

“A shuttle is picking me up in twenty minutes. Can’t it wait?”

“No. I found something, and you need to know. If you leave I… I might lose my nerve.”

Wildly, her mind leaps to Malavai. Is he dead? Captured? Some detail of their affair gone public? She’s still working it through when Edik tells her and her entire mind goes white with static.

“I’m sorry?”

He inhales shakily. “My mother gave coordinates and timetables for the Tanaab diplomatic mission to the Republic. She wanted your mother dead.”

“That’s ridiculous- why would she do that?”

“Darth Avari was violently against arranging a marriage between us. My mother hoped you would prove more… amenable.”

“Edik, please,” she whispers, barely audible through the roaring in her ears. Her skin feels tingly and hot. She has no idea what she’s asking him for. She forces herself to look at him. “I just finished dealing with this, I can’t-”

“You must. You deserve the truth. She had a contact in the Diplomatic Corps who fed her the information. She in turn gave it to a broker who deals directly with the SIS.” 

Her datapad chimes and a new message pops up on the screen. Attached is everything. Financial records showing the payments made for the information, payments received for selling it to the Republic. She made a tidy profit, Mara notes distantly. She got everything: coordinates of her campsite on Tanaab. Security footage of her mother’s quarters at the Imperial embassy on Tanaab.

And there are messages on the subject. _Ragna believes her brat is too special for an arranged marriage. Stronger measures are required._

Malavai said he’d found her. Was that a lie? A coincidence? A cover-up for an assassination attempt?

There’s a _ crack _ and a jolt of electricity through her fingers. She looks down to find the datapad crushed in her grip, smoking faintly from a shock of Force lightning. She feels more than hears Edik’s surprised gasp. She looks up to meet those yellow eyes. Szkania eyes, like his mother’s. Like his children.

“Did you know?” she asks, her voice very quiet. She reaches into his mind. He’s not shielding himself. He lets her in to taste his sense and his emotions. She’ll know if he’s lying.

“No. I didn’t even know about her earlier attempts to arrange the marriage.” He’s in earnest. He feels as duped as she does.

Except he can’t possibly. He will never look at their offspring and see his mother’s murderer.

“Mara, please know I would never have let her do this if I’d known, if I’d-”

“I’m going to Ziost now,” she says, standing and buckling her utility belt. “And on the way I will be contacting my attorneys. Huelwen Thrask will be restored as my rightful heir.”

He stiffens. “Our children have nothing-”

“_ Your _ children are the product of an attempt to overthrow this house,” she snarls, rounding on him. “I accept that you had no knowledge of this. You will reap every benefit of our agreement save for siring my heirs. When I die, your children will inherit Szkania. Huelwen will inherit Thrask.”

He glares at her. It’s the protective glare of a father whose children have been threatened. 

“Do not test me in this, Edik. Fight me, and I will lay all of this bare. We’ll go scandal for scandal and see whose house is strong enough to endure.” 

It won’t be Szkania. They both know it. Even if her scandal is worse - debatable at this point, there’s nothing classified about her body and she never shared anything beyond that with Malavai - Szkania is a third of the size of Thrask, and correspondingly smaller reserves of credits and political capital. 

That’s the whole point, really, the whole reason Lady Szkania wanted this union in the first place. Thrask is stronger. _ She _is stronger.

Something in that security allows her to soften. She doesn’t have to bluster with him.

“I allied myself with you, Edik, because our businesses complement each other and I trust you as a business partner and a friend,” she says gently, stepping forward to place a hand on his arm. “But I lead this house, and you must see I can’t reward that woman’s schemes.”

“No one would know,” he insists. Mara shakes her head; he knows better than she that Lady Szkania had her confidants, most of them still living. All of whom must be tittering privately at how gullible Mara has been in all this.

“Our houses will remain closely entwined, as will our businesses. But I’ll burn the Empire to the ground rather than see a Szkania heir inherit this signet.”

“They’re Thrask heirs, too,” he says, though she can see resignation in his eyes. “You carried them, you _ birthed _ them.”

“Edik,” she says gently. “Any Force-blind imbecile can see they’re yours and Innan’s.”

He’s still staring, dumbfounded, when she turns her back and walks away.


	9. To The Quick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara re-writes her will and lands on Ziost, where everything has gone to shit. She is assigned to reclaim and guard a regional power station, where she has an unplanned reunion with her former lover. Content notes for mind control and Star Wars-style limb chopping apply. It's not Star Wars until someone loses a limb, am I right?

The best thing about her position, Mara thinks, is she can afford the best talent, and she can compel them to act  _ quickly _ . In the eight hours it takes to get to Ziost, she’s re-written her will naming Huelwen as heir to Thrask. She lays out a respectable widower’s pension for Edik and trusts for each of the twins. Just as she completes the expedited filing process - there are special considerations available to high-ranking Sith on their way to a warzone - the ship shudders around her. They’ve hit Ziost’s atmosphere.

And something is very wrong. That dark presence from Yavin is here, except heavier. It presses in on her mind, cloying and venomous.

At the Sith Intelligence base on the outskirts of New Adasta, Mara can hear the  _ pew pew _ of blasterfire and the deeper answer from heavy cannon emplacements on the base’s walls. She catches a glimpse over the wall on her way into the central building and freezes, horror seeping through her gut. Outside the walls, civilians with sidearms throw themselves into the cannon fire. When they’re clustered together, she can see the wisps or dark side energy undulating around their heads.

Literal cannon fodder courtesy of their former emperor. That malignant presence can mean nothing else.

“That briefing left much to be desired,” she announces to Minister Beniko as the door closes behind her. 

“Good, because we can’t afford even whispers of this getting out,” the blonde woman replies, utterly unfazed. She turns to the rest of the room - five other Sith in full battle armor. “In case you haven't guessed, yes, Vitiate is here, and he’s making a slow meal of his own people. With certain…  _ curious _ exceptions.”

Belatedly, Mara realizes everyone in the room save for Lana is Red Sith. “Why?” she demands.

“A perverse sense of nostalgia? To be honest, we don’t know and we don’t have the time or the manpower to figure it out.”

“And how do we know you’re unaffected?”

Lana gives a sharp, humorless smile. “Believe me, he’s tried. With a planetful of fodder, I guess he decided to move on.”

“We’re taking the fight to him, then?” one of the others - a lean man whose tendrils are more gold jewelry than flesh - asks.

“No. I have a team on that already. I’ve asked you all here because I trust you and because you’ve all proven exceptionally effective on your own in the field.” Above the holo table, a map of the sector containing New Adasta materializes, six points highlighted in red.

“Vitiate is trying to cripple our communications and power generation, and he’s sending his forces,” her voice twists with revulsion as she says the word, “against two regional generators and four comm relays. I need you to clear them out and hold them while we deal with Vitiate and evacuate the unaffected civilians.”

The silence in the room thickens as the realization spreads through Mara and her colleagues. They can hold off Force-blind puppets for awhile, but a puppet only has to get lucky once to take them out. It’s not  _ quite _ a suicide mission, but it’s so close as to render the distinction irrelevant. 

It doesn’t matter. Mara always loved the story of Mavia Raniksh, who held Adasta against Republic forces to give her people enough time to evacuate. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to live up to her hero’s example. That the threat is their own former leader makes her stomach churn, but again, that doesn’t matter.

“We’ll hold them as long as we breathe, Minister,” she says. 

Lana nods and assigns them each their coordinates. 

***

By the time Mara makes it to her designated power generator, she’s already spattered with civilian blood. There’s a small horde of slaves outside the generator - she can see the collars shiny on their necks. Lana prepared them all for such an eventuality. They’re easy enough to dispatch using a universal collar remote.

Her family hasn’t kept slaves in over a century. She’s never touched one before. She insists to herself it’s a mercy, better than being possessed by a monster only to face torture and punishment later. But when they’re dead she empties the contents of her stomach into the dirt outside the station.

When she straightens, shaking with adrenaline and rage, and she can  _ swear _ she hears malevolent laughter in her mind as their erstwhile master giggles at her efforts and her discomfort. Perhaps dying to hold this generator is, similarly, a mercy.

She’s not two steps inside the facility when she knows she’s not alone. There’s someone up ahead, moving at a brisk walk. She lengthens her stride, keeping her boots silent on the duracrete floor. She’s just within blade range, unlit lightsaber in hand, when the person snaps around, a blindingly brilliant white blade slicing down. It collides with her golden-orange blade, and she gets a good look at her attacker. She almost loses her grip on her weapon in her shock.

“Malavai?”

The memory of his expression the last time she saw him, sneering and cruel, springs into her mind, but it’s practically grandmotherly compared to the way he’s looking at her now. Tendrils of the dark side writhe around his head like a bizarre corona, fading into his black hair, which looks like he hasn’t combed or washed it in days. His eyes.... Marserha help her. 

They flash red like a Sith blade, somehow bright and bloody-looking at the same time, and they know her. As they shift to take in her face, the straining muscles in her arms as he bears down on her with his blade, she can  _ see _ in them the man who was once so intimately familiar with her body and her tells. She can see him, but he’s a passenger, an unwilling feeder of information to the being that’s actually in charge.

“Well, well,” Vitiate purrs in a parody of Malavai’s voice, “haven’t you been a naughty girl.”

“And aren’t you a dirty old man,” she counters, shoving him backward with all her strength. “There’s plenty of whatever you’re seeing right now if you want to sit back and wank for awhile.”

He doesn’t answer. Just gives her a ghoulish grin and leaps toward her again. She keeps herself between him and the control room, mindful of the conduits in the ceiling as they fight. They can’t take this place down as collateral damage. Vitiate has enhanced Malavai’s speed and strength; he certainly exhausts her as the engagement continues. But she’s better, has  _ always _ been better than he in close quarters. 

Finally, she backhands him and drives him to his knees. A kick to the face and he topples backward, blood streaming from his nose. Wearily, face turned away from her, he pushes himself onto an elbow.

“Mara, wait!”

It’s his voice. Clear and exhausted and filled with fear. She steps toward him, free hand outstretched on instinct, even as part of her mind screams at her for her stupidity. And then she’s screaming out loud.

He snaps upright, his blade shearing through her forearm. 

Her vision greys around the edges and she staggers backward, barely catching herself on her knees. She can smell her cauterized flesh and hear the thud when her arm hits the ground two meters in front of her. It’s like she’s staring at someone else’s severed arm. When she clenches her fists, she can feel her remaining hand squeeze her lightsaber, and she can feel the ghost of her left hand stretching the synthleather of her gauntlet.

The thing that isn’t Malavai stands, chuckling richly as he strides toward her.

“If they ask why I did this,  _ you _ are the perfect example,” he sneers. “Too weak to truly seduce a Jedi. Too weak to avoid falling in love with him. My children have grown soft and useless.”

Everything from the last twenty-four hours - Edik’s revalations, her fear, her rage, and the residual whatever the fuck it is she feels for Malavai - wells up in her until she crackles with power. The smell of ozone wrinkles her nose and electricity skitters over her skin. 

“And yet, we will beat you anyway,” she snarls and slams her fists into the ground.

Lightning flares around her, radiating out from the cracked impact of her fists. She flings it forward and swaddles her former lover in a crackling purple cocoon. He screams and convulses. It’s two voices screaming, dissonant in her ears. She flares her power again and the lower of the two voices trails off until it’s just Malavai’s voice, raw and desperate with pain.

She lets him drop, calling his lightsaber to her shaking palm just in case. When he remains silent and unmoving on the ground, she creeps forward on her hand and knees, limping like a three-legged ack dog. She pulls one of his eyelids back and is greeted by an icy blue iris that thickens when his pupil shrinks. 

She mutters thanks to whatever deity is paying attention and slides her pack off her back, dropping it unceremoniously onto Malavai’s thighs when she tries to catch it with her nonexistent left hand. Clumsy with her single arm, she extracts a pair of Force-suppressing cuffs and links Malavai’s wrists in front of him. 

Satisfied he’ll be helpless if he wakes with Vitiate in his head, she retrieves a medkit and slaps a nerve cap on the stump just below her elbow. She focuses on the minutiae of the task, refusing to let her mind wrap around the obvious implications. It’s harder to compartmentalize when she places the severed limb in a single-use stasis bag. 

When it’s done, she picks up the pack with her good hand and drags Malavai up the hall with the Force until she reaches the control room.

***

Consciousness rings in Quinn’s head, low at first, like the hum of a distant speeder. It crescendos in a rush of pain. At least half his body is smoldering like coal and something is definitely trying to rip his skull open from the inside. His mouth tastes like death and beyond that  _ something _ is wrong.

He grimaces and tries to coax his eyelids into opening. Everything after their ship crashing is an unpleasant haze but he knows he’s on Ziost and being unconscious in enemy territory is a stupid move when there are other alternatives. 

Overhead lights blind him the moment he cracks his eyelids and he flinches back, breathes to calm himself, and tries again, slowly. 

He’s lying on a duracrete floor surrounded by consoles and- someone. He frowns. How can there be someone here when he didn’t sense them? Perhaps his head is fuzzier than he thought. He raises a hand to rub his forehead and freezes when his other comes with it.

Force suppressor cuffs.  _ Captured _ .

“Good, you’re awake.”

Quinn freezes in shock. How is  _ she _ here? And how did she find him? The past days are starting to reassert themselves. He remembers her sneaking up on him now.

“Where are we?” he asks, forcing himself to look at her. She hasn’t turned toward him. 

She barks a laugh and there’s a world of bitterness in it, and not a little pain. “You don’t remember?”

“We came to Ziost. We crashed…” he trails off, his mind slowly unfolding the memories to him. Sitting inside his own skull watching his blade mow down civilians. A presence, malevolent and nauseating. “What happened to me?”

“Our glorious leader,” she growls. “He’s possessing everyone on the planet, except, apparently,” there’s that bitterness again, “people like me.”

“I attacked you.” It’s coming back. They fought. The blood caking his face makes sense now. And he- he shies back from the memory.

“ _ You _ attacked me on Yavin. This is Vitiate’s handiwork.”

She finally turns toward him. He knows what he’ll see, but that doesn’t stop the gasp that escapes when his eyes fall on her left arm, ending just below the elbow with a silver cap of nerve-preserving tech. She’ll need a prosthesis.

Whatever is - was - between them, he never wanted  _ this _ .

“Mara, I’m so-”

She leaps forward and grabs the front of his tunic with her good hand, yanking his face close to hers. 

“If you apologize to me I will rip your spine out through your throat,” she snarls. “I’ve given birth to twins, Malavai. This is nothing.”

Why does that declaration hurt him? And damn her, she meant it to hurt. Even now she knows how to get under his skin. 

“What do you want from me?” he demands.

She drops him and he lands on his back, unable to catch himself with hands or the Force. “I need help defending this installation. Vitiate’s trying to cripple our evacuation efforts, and your precious Republic has decided to send troops to the surface to fatten his meal.” She glares at her arm briefly - it’s a glance, something anyone not familiar with her face wouldn’t catch - “I can barely type, and I can’t fire a blaster rifle like this.”

He’s blinking through the rapid-fire information. “The  _ Republic _ is here?”

“That wasn’t the plan?”

“No! Suresh refused to sanction just the  _ six  _ of us coming. She had Agent Shan’s intel and the dangers he suspected, why would she send a fleet after us?” It’s like Tanaab all over again, but writ large and costing so many more lives.

For the first time, she looks uncertain, and she kneels next to him so she’s not looming as much. “What  _ was _ the plan? How many Jedi are here?”

“Six of us on my ship,” he says without hesitation, “and Agent Shan. I have no idea if Suresh sent Force users with the fleet. We were going to stop him. We thought you wouldn’t be able to given your forces were already… occupied.”

“So you landed a bunch of fresh, lightsaber-wielding minds here?” she demands incredulously. 

“We were an acceptable loss; six minds won’t make or break this.”

Her hands go to the Force suppressors and they deactivate. The Force floods his mind with dizzying sensation - his pain trebles, the hum of machinery assaults his ears along with the distant sounds of battle. And her mind brushes his. 

He cocks his head, confused that she’d wait for his approval even in his weakened state, but he nods. She slips into his mind like a spring breeze, gauging his sincerity. He considers hiding the part of himself that still thinks of her, that smells her on every piece of his clothing, but he doesn’t. 

He tells himself it’s to avoid her thinking he’s hiding something relevant to this mission. It has nothing to do with the odd relief that comes from dropping all his pretenses, or how she’s the only person in the galaxy he’s been able to do that with.

She notices. She softens, just the slightest bit.

Then she’s all business, unlocking the cuffs. “You’d better hope you’re wrong about that, because the way things are going there will  _ only _ be six or so minds on the entire planet not under Vitiate’s control,” she says. “And if Vitiate possesses you again I won’t hesitate to kill you, you know.”

“You’d better not,” he replies, rubbing his wrists. Still, a ridiculous part of him flutters with excitement. 

_ She hesitated the first time _ . 


	10. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Quinn and Lord Thrask leave Ziost just before it comes to its canonical end.

They hold out well, all things considered, partly because Mara managed to bring a truly impressive amount of weapons and supplies with her on this mission, and partly because as the hours wear on, fewer and fewer waves of civilians and unfortunate soldiers throw themselves against the generator’s defenses. Something else has captured Vitiate’s attention.

It also becomes clear to Quinn that Mara is tired. Not because of her injuries or the duress of the day - or at least, not _ just _ because of that. She’s seated on the floor, back against a console, staring at sensor footage of New Adasta’s streets in flame, hugging herself with her remaining arm. She looks miserable and he has to restrain himself from reaching for her. 

He cut her fucking arm off - he doubts she wants his proximity right now, not like that.

Pushing that aside, he digs into her pack for a ration bar, breaks it in half, and brings it to her. She jumps in surprise when he offers it to her.

“You need to eat,” he says. It’s been twelve hours since he came to. She gives the sensors one final look before sighing heavily and accepting the offering. He waits until she takes a bite, to make sure she _ does _ , before biting into his own half. His gag reflex immediately triggers. “Is this _ vomit-flavored? _” he demands, staring at the alleged food in his hand.

She laughs. Sort of. “That’s not it’s _ official _ designation,” she replies. He notices she takes large bites and barely seems to chew. He follows suit and it goes down… not easily. But less traumatically. 

“No wonder your forces are always so filled with rage.”

“It builds character,” she quips. She’s quiet for a long moment, and Quinn looks up to find her studying him. “How did you find me on Tanaab?” she asks.

Quinn frowns, thrown by the question. “I pieced together your movements and projected your next target based on the strategy you seemed to be using.”

“No, I mean… how did you find my campsite? Surely you couldn’t feel my presence in the Force yet.”

“The SIS gave that information to us,” he says slowly, thinking back. “It was my third attempt to intercept your missions, and only acted upon because my ‘guess’,” he sneers around the word, “was corroborated by separate intelligence.”

She curls in on herself, knees to her chest, runs her hand through her hair. The aborted movement of her left arm and how she twitches in surprise tells him she meant to run both hands through it. She grimaces and meets his eyes.

“Did it never occur to you to ask where that intel came from?” she demands bitterly.

He frowns. “I assumed they had their own surveillance methods and sources.”

“Of course they did. And I found them.”

But she hasn’t been in Republic space, in any engagements with the Republic’s forces, in a year. The Force help him, he continued scanning for her inimitable presence despite everything. If she wasn’t pursuing leads in the Republic that means.... He feels his mouth drop open as realization sets in. 

“They got it from the Empire.”

“My late mother-in-law, in fact.” 

An unexpected fury vibrates in his bones. “Your- _ what _? Why?” 

“My mother refused to arrange the marriage I wound up arranging for myself. So Lady Szkania had her killed.” If he thought her voice couldn’t get any more bitter, he was wrong. It gets even more brittle as she continues, “I birthed two childen who carry her genetics, never knowing. They look like her. Like Edik, and he looks like his mother.” 

She’s staring at nothing, almost babbling, as if this has been bubbling inside her and she needs to tell someone. Anyone.

“That’s despicable,” he growls, surrendering to his need to be near her, at least a little, and claiming the patch of duracrete floor next to her. “Did he know? Did he knowingly make you- do this?” 

She turns in surprise as he settles next to her, an unreadable expression on her face. “Are you going to murder my husband, Malavai?”

“Would it make you happy?” he asks without hesitation. 

She bursts out laughing. It’s genuine, but still edged with acid. “That’s sweet, but no,” she says. “Edik is horrified by what his mother made him party to. And it’s cost him and his children leadership of my house.” She sobers, leaning her head back against the wall. “I don’t think happiness is something I get to have. Not in the long run, at least.”

Her words from Yavin float back through his mind. _ I thought you could be happier with me _. And it occurs to him that might be true for her, too. Or would have been. He’s been in her presence less than a day and he can feel the regret over his actions seeping into him. He shouldn’t have rebuffed her so completely.

It also occurs to him the feed from New Adasta has cut off. Mara notices, too, and she’s on her feet, wobbling as she’s still not used to balancing with only one arm. 

“What’s happening?” he asks. 

“The last comm relay must have gone.” She looks at him. “Why would Vitiate abandon the power generators but continue to sabotage comms?”

He’s not sure where his next words come from, but he _ knows them _ for truth. “We need to get off this planet.”

“I can’t just abandon my people,” she counters.

“You have teams seeing to the evacuation,” he reminds her, “and Vitiate isn’t bothering to cut the power anymore.” That could change, he supposes, but every instinct is screaming at him to get on a ship and make sure she’s with him.

She hesitates only a moment longer, then nods. “We pick up anyone we find on the way who isn’t possessed,” she says.

“Of course.”

***

She has to let Malavai drive her speeder bike. She feels ridiculous, clinging to his back with her remaining arm, but she can also feel in her mind that same certain, impending doom he can, so she doesn’t make too much of a fuss.

Their route back to the edge of New Adasta is upsettingly devoid of living sentients, but littered with corpses. 

It’s an odd relief to find a squadron of Republic soldiers guarding two ships in an improvised landing area. Just outside the soldier’s defenses, a group of civilians huddles - teenagers, mainly - haggling unsuccessfully for passage off-planet. Even from here, Mara can tell at least some of them are Force sensitive. They can feel what’s coming.

Malavai slows the bike and ducks behind a building before the picket spots them. “I can get them offworld,” he says, turning so his blue eyes can search her face, “but I’ll need you to act like I’ve captured you.”

She shakes her head. “No. I can’t do that.” Today has been bad enough without adding “perceived humiliation by a Jedi” to the list of things she’s endured.

“Not even for them?”

Her heart twists, but she ignores it. “I’m not helping you kidnap Sith Acolytes.”

“I’m not _ like them _, damnit,” he growls. “I’m not using this tragedy to enrich the Jedi.”

“Then why-”

“Because if I don’t get you off this fucking planet, you’ll die,” he snaps. His hands cradle her face, his gentle touch disorientingly at odds with the anger in his eyes as he glares at her. “And if the only way for you to accept my help is for me to send a bunch of Sith Acolytes back to Korriban, I’ll do it.”

“That’s treason,” she whispers. He deflates a little, but doesn’t pull away .

“I’m not joining the Empire,” he says. 

“Just saving my miserable life?” she asks, cheeks aflame.

“Only if you’ll allow it.” he hesitates. “I’ll take them offworld no matter what,” he admits, “and leave them at the orbital station, but please don’t ask me to leave you here.”

He presses his forehead to hers and his sense beckons. She slips into his mind, her eyes sliding closed at the half-remembered comfort of feeling his senses swirling with hers. He’s in earnest. He… cares.

“I’ll allow it,” she whispers. 

He laughs. It’s a tortured sound. And then he digs into his utility belt and retrieves the Force suppressors she used earlier. 

He can only fasten one cuff on her. It’s enough - the world flattens into a superficial facsimile of itself when the cuff activates - but the other dangles ridiculously from her wrist with nothing else to attach to. She laughs mirthlessly.

“I know,” he sighs. “Hold still.”

When her arm is anchored uncomfortably to her belt, he attaches her lightsaber to his belt and helps her back onto the speeder. His arms go around her to reach the handlebars, and they’re moving toward the troopers. 

“It’s only for a few minutes,” he murmurs against her ear.

The soldiers freeze when their speeder rounds the corner, the children too. 

“What’s going on here?” Malavai demands, hauling Mara off the speeder with him. She struggles against his hold, trying to sell their roleplay.

“These Imps are trying to escape the planet, Master Jedi,” replies one soldier. It’s impossible to see his face through the helmet, but the faceplate is trained on Mara. She flashes him a predatory grin and he shifts backward a step. “Do you need assistance with your… prisoner?”

“No, I’ll lock her up myself. Bring the civilians, too. We’re leaving.”

“Sir, but- Chancellor Suresh-”

“-Is not here. Believe me when I tell you something bad is coming, Lieutenant.” Malavai steps closer to the trooper, shifting Mara to the side. When he does so, his arm is settled against her back almost as if he were embracing her. It’s all she can do not to relax into his grip.

Why she should still want to relax against him is unfathomable to her. She shakes her head and turns her attention to the troopers.

“You can help me save lives,” he continues, “or you can stay here and perish.”

“But the civilians can’t go back to the Republic. There’s no use for them.”

Without the Force, Mara can’t sense Malavai’s emotions. But his body goes rigid, his hand flexes against her back. He’s livid.

“Fortunately for you, there are two ships here. Get in one of them and go.” The way Malavai growls the last word sends a thrill up Mara’s spine. “Report me to Suresh if you like, but you will leave immediately. I have no use for soldiers who can’t see the value in sentient life. Get out of here.”

They hesitate only a moment before obeying. Mara’s certain they’ll be holoing Command as soon as they can to report Malvai’s odd actions, but she can’t bring herself to care. She turns to the group of civilians and lowers her voice.

“Come with us. We’ll see you back to the orbital station, and you can get a transport there to Korriban or Dromund Kaas, or wherever you wish to go.”

“Your arm,” says one of the younger teens, her eyes wide. Mara grimaces.

“The spoils of battle,” she says calmly. Malavai presses a button on the cuffs and the world floods back into her awareness. She casts him a grateful glance and turns back to the group. “Jedi might be spineless bastards but you can trust this one. And if he does try to haul you to Tython, I’ll gut him.”

They’re dubious. But that sense of doom is only getting worse, so they nod warily and move toward the other Republic ship. It’s small - Thunderclap-class - but it’ll hold them all easily. As soon as they’re inside, out of view of the other ship, which is powering up, Malavai removes the cuffs entirely. 

Mara sits in the copilot’s seat and reaches for the navicomputer with her left hand, and freezes. She’s useless as a pilot without a prosthesis.

Fortunately, Malavai seems familiar enough with the controls to fly himself. No one shoots at them as they lift off and join a stream of traffic hightailing it toward the Ziost orbital station. That on its own is concerning, given their Republic transponder on an Imperial world. 

They’ve just cleared the atmosphere when the Force explodes with pain. It’s like when her mother died, fingers of fire digging into her brain, but somehow both less intimate and far worse all at the same time. 

It’s not just one person, deeply loved. It’s billions of sentients and an unknown amount of animal and plant life. Trillions upon trillions of threads being yanked out of the Force at once. Each infinitesimal on its own, but the aggregate… she can feel herself screaming. Behind the cockpit, in the conference room, she can hear the screams of other Force sensitives onboard. 

Stars, but it hurts, the pain expanding against the inside of her skull. She grabs her head, pressing in, certain if she doesn’t it will explode. Her vision swims and shorts out. 

Eventually, the pain recedes enough for Mara to open her eyes. She’s panting, her throat raw, wedged on the deck between the copilot’s chair and a console. Malavai is huddled in a ball in the pilot’s chair, his restraints the only thing keeping him from toppling over. 

Of course he put on his restraints.

She pushes herself up off the floor with her good arm. Shaking, she initiates a scan of the planet.

“Malavai,” she chokes. “Get over here.”

He unstraps and moves behind her, looking at the results of the scan.

Nothing. No sentients, no animals, no plants. Not even microbes. Vitiate killed everything on the planet. 

Someone swears in ancient Sith, and it takes a moment to realize its her, cursing in the tongue of her ancestors, the words an odd eulogy for her people.

There was a thriving Scarlet District in New Adasta. It’s a genocide on the level of what the Jedi did to them nearly fourteen hundred years ago. The thing they all feared, the thing they guarded against the most, and it came from within.

Her knees give out.

***

Quinn grabs her on instinct, stopping her fall and easing her into the copilot’s chair. Her muttering trail off, hand curled in his. Her luminous red skin is cold and clammy, her face ashen.

“He left us alive on purpose,” she whispers, and somehow that broken sound is far worse than hearing her screams of pain a few minutes ago. “All the Red Sith on Ziost. He didn’t touch our minds at all. He wanted us present and _ lucid _for all this.”

She’s shaking. Whether with grief or rage, he’s not sure. Probably both. And he can’t blame her. That anger from earlier, when she talked about her husband and his mother’s schemes, is back, directed at Vitiate both for this unimaginable crime, and for causing the the despair rolling off of the woman in his arms. She’s spent years ripping away his layers of control and he’s still unprepared for the feeling. 

“What do you want to do?” he asks, his voice shaking. He’s afraid she’ll burrow into him seeking his protection, or demand he join her, blazing across the galaxy on a quest for vengeance. He knows he won’t be able to refuse her either way.

She’s quiet for a long time, her gloved hand twined in his.

“I don’t know yet,” she says finally, mercifully. A glance back toward the passenger area and she amends, “let’s get them to the orbital station.”


	11. Fulcrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara and Quinn arrive at the Ziost orbital station and say their goodbyes.   
Or DO they?

The Thunderclap’s medbay is quite well stocked, as Quinn would expect from a small troop transport. He has a little medical knowledge, and he’s able to treat the minor scrapes and bruises for their various passengers while Mara paces, vibrating with energy. The group is wary of him at first, with the youngest pulling away from him when he tries to scan her. An older boy, who is most definitely Force sensitive, puts a comforting hand on the young girl’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay. He’s not dead inside like the others; he wants to help.”

“Dead inside?” he echoes, frowning.

“You have feelings,” the boy clarifies, golden eyes unsettling as they pick apart Quinn’s exterior. “Most Jedi don’t. They feel wrong.”

“I see.” Quinn has no idea what to do with that information. He could chide the boy, that of course Jedi have feelings, they’re just not  _ ruled by them _ . But then he catches sight of Mara on her umpteenth circuit through the ship, and something in his chest twists in a painful, oddly warm way. 

The boy follows his gaze. “Who cut off her arm?”

_ I did _ . “Vitiate, through one of his puppets. She was protecting me.” It’s close enough to the truth for this particular audience. 

“Are you going to help her?”

“Yes.” However much she’ll let him. 

The boy blinks. “Even though she’s Sith.”

Quinn fixes the boy with a flat glare. “It’s my mandate as a Jedi to help anyone who needs it.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demands.

“You’re not very good at hiding your feelings. Even I can feel them. It’s weird that you can’t.”

Whatever he felt, it’s in the past. Isn’t it? And even if it weren’t, it’s not like she’d want him near her after Yavin IV. It’s not like it could ever  _ work _ .

He finishes treating the girl’s bruises and the boy, who seems to be the de facto leader of the group, herds everyone off the ship.

“Is this supposed to itch?” Mara asks from behind him. 

She’s cradling the stump below her elbow.

“I don’t know if it’s supposed to  _ itch _ , but at least it means the nerves are still alive,” he replies, ushering her to a medical bed. She flinches violently when he touches the nerve cap. “Does that hurt?” He asks, worried.

“No, it just-” she grimaces, “you shouldn’t have to touch it.” She’s embarrassed, ashamed of her injury.

Gently, he reaches for her again, cradling the end of her arm in both hands. “I know I don’t have to. Let me help.”

“I thought you didn’t want me making you weak.”

“You don’t make me weak,” he says, searching her face. “I was wrong. I just didn’t- I can’t join the Sith. Not even now.”

She snorts. “I’m not particularly enamored of them myself at the moment.”

“No, I suppose you aren’t.” He sighs and leans back. “Will the Empire have sufficient medical facilities to deal with this here?”

“Yes,” she nods. “All I need is bring the-” she cuts off, then swears. “Shit. My gear. I left it at the power generator.”

The gear that included her arm in a stasis bag. 

She swears some more, fluently in Basic, Sith, and Huttese. Quinn is reluctantly impressed, if he’s honest. He didn’t know Imperials deigned to learn Huttese. Most Jedi certainly don’t. 

“They’ll think I’m dead, if they find it. Fuck. Well, if I show up asking for a prosthesis I suppose that will solve the mystery quite quickly.”

He nods and busies himself applying a cream to the edges of the nerve cap, where the skin is irritated by the metal. “I suppose I should let you go. Do you need me to throw you out or anything? For the sake of appearances.”

She laughs. “That’s a sweet offer, but no.” Slowly, she gets to her feet and moves toward the airlock.

He accompanies her, his hand at the small of her back, drinking in her warmth. When she steps over the threshold to the station, it feels like a good ten degrees of heat goes with her. She pauses, her back to him, and says, “I’m glad we saw each other again. It felt wrong, leaving it like we did on Yavin.”

“Me-” he cuts off, swallowing noisily. What in the galaxy has come over him? “Me, too. I’m sorry for how I hurt you.”

“You’re a realist, Malavai, as am I.” She flashes him a smile over her shoulder. “Perhaps we’ll fight together again. Or perhaps Suresh will try to carpet bomb Dromund Kaas. Who knows.”

He laughs. It’s hollow-sounding in his ears. 

Then she’s gone.

***

Hours later, Mara lies on a cot in one of the many improvised medical wards on the Ziost orbital station. Around her, Imperial troopers and civilians alike groan with injuries or the after-effects of possession. In a normal circumstance, the staff here wouldn’t have dared place her amongst the rank and file, but with the influx of injured personnel from Ziost, some of the old hierarchies have broken down.

Not all of them though. She’s not the only amputee on the station, but she was one of the first to receive a prosthesis.

The limb is matte black metal, lightweight enough to feel like it’s a part of her anatomy. She called a datapad to her with the Force and caught it easily with the artificial hand, feeling the instrument’s weight and texture accurately. Once she gets home, she can have a housing made for it. It likely won’t be synthflesh - the idea churns her stomach - but something more mechanical.

Rioting has broken out in several quarters of Kaas City, a combination of panic, grief, and existential crisis driving sentients to the streets. The home guard is quelling them, of course. It’s hard to see the vid feeds from the capital and not see the early stages of New Adasta’s destruction, even though none of the rioters show the telltale signs of possession.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be possession to bring down the current government. Already there are rumors of fractures in the Dark Council, of infighting as everyone with a modicum of power jockeys to take advantage of the tragedy. 

That’s what Sith are good at, if they’re not causing the tragedy themselves.

She’s not looking forward to going back to it all, to facing Edik and her cousins and the twins. When they learn of her injury they’ll be all over her, fawning and  _ helping  _ and the idea of it makes her want to jump out an airlock.

The news feed starts playing new footage of the riots and Mara lurches to her feet. She can’t watch it again. She has to get out of here. She needs… she can’t finish that thought. 

She threads her way through the crowded station, following her senses to the same docking bay. The door slides open at her touch. By the time she gets to the central corridor of the ship, Malavai has stumbled down the stairs leading to the flight deck.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, crossing to her.

“I need-” she swallows, heat flooding her cheeks, finally noticing the wetness on them. When had she started crying? And why is this so  _ embarrassing _ ? “I need my Jedi to fuck me.”

He freezes at her words. “What about your husband? What about-”

“I gave him the name and the children he wanted despite everything.” She takes a step forward. “I’ve protected my house and my cousins and given my damn arm for the Empire.” She can hear her voice tremble and she can’t bring herself to care. “I just want this- this one moment. If you’ll allow it.”

The words are barely out of her mouth before he’s there, cradling her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing through the tear stains on her cheeks and his mouth hot on hers. She pulls him against her desperately, one hand threading through his hair-

It’s the false hand. It’s a little more attuned to sensation than her biological hand, the tactile sensation a little too crisp and detailed. She shifts it to his shoulder and her body relaxes into his arms as she deepens the kiss, sliding her tongue against his. 

When he pulls away, they’re both panting. They weight of him pressing her against the unyielding bulkhead is somehow more real than her entire life from the past year, including pregnancy and childbirth. Even losing her arm is a more surreal experience than the solidity of his body against hers. He takes his eyes from hers long enough to reach over her shoulder to secure the airlock.

“Why didn’t you do that when I left the first time?” she asks.

“You know the reason,” he whispers, lips teasing the shell of her ear and sending pleasant shivers through her body.

“I want to hear you say it. Please.” 

He presses his forehead to hers. “I hoped you would come back.”

“I’m here.”

“ _ Why _ did you come back?”

_ Because you make me happy _ . “Because you’re the only person in my life who hasn’t lied to me. Because I couldn’t lie there listening to the news from Kaas City- there’s infighting  _ already _ and-”

“Sshh.” He runs soothing hands over her back, one slipping into her hair to guide her lips to his. “That doesn’t exist here. Not right now at least.”

His kisses are uncharacteristically gentle as he guides her from the bulkhead to the crew seats just across from the airlock. She has to clutch his shoulders with both hands when his lips shift to her neck, nipping at the tender spot just below her ear, hands seeking out the buckle of her utility belt.

He bites her again, a little harder, and she convulses against him, a soft whimper escaping her lips. 

“Again,” she whispers.

“It’ll leave a mark if I keep going.”

“Do it.”

His hands slide into her trousers right when his teeth close on her flesh and it’s all she can do to stay on her feet. He soothes the bite with this tongue, then rakes her again, slowly bending her body back so he can get better access to her cunt.

He works at her with both his hand and his mouth, mercilessly combining pain and pleasure, until she shatters to pieces against him, hands scrabbling at his shoulders when her legs give out. He supports her easily, his fingers still moving in her slowly until the aftershocks of her orgasm subside. 

Only then does he lower her into one of the chairs and drop to his knees before her. She’s so blissed out, it takes a moment for her to realize he’s removed one of her boots and is working on the other.

“Malavai?”

He looks up at her, cradling her ankle in both hands, his head resting against the inside of her knee. “Hush and let me take care of everything,” he whispers, nuzzling a kiss to the side of her knee.

She stares at him as deft fingers unzip her boot and yank it off, then carefully remove her trousers and undergarments. When she’s naked from the waist down, he settles on his ankles and yanks her toward him with a hand on each hip. Blue eyes hold hers as he leans forward and delicately licks the full length of her cunt.

She knows what he’s going to do, but the contact is still like a bolt of lightning through her body. She cries his name again and arches against him. Gently, he presses her back into the seat.

“Be still,” he admonishes her. The words are another jolt of pleasure, and she has to hold herself still when he returns his attention to her aching cunt. 

His tongue is maddeningly polite and delicate, tasting her as one would a fine wine when she wants to be devoured. Every time she loses control and thrusts her hips against his face, or tries to capture him with her thighs, he pulls away, arching a dark brow at her until she settles.

Finally, when she’s trembling with need and babbling entreaties, he pulls back and she cries, “ _ No _ .”

He chuckles richly, his face coated in her juices, and asks, “Do you want to come?”

“ _ Fuck _ yes, please,” she begs, only barely keeping herself from grabbing him with the Force. “I need you to make me come.”

He turns his head to kiss her inner thigh, his touch suddenly soft, and says, “As you wish.”

And  _ then  _ he devours her. She shrieks and grabs his hair with her good hand. Rather than shake her off, as he had before, he leans into her more deeply, his tongue slithering inside her as she grinds against his face. She loses herself in the sensation, spiraling until, with another shriek, she hugs his face against her desperately as she comes. 

This time, he smacks her thigh twice in quick succession, and she immediately releases her grip. He gasps for breath as he leans back, his face wet and rubbed pink in places, his hair completely askew. 

He grins up at her. “I’m glad you remembered the signal.”

“Me, too,” she replies. 

“So, Lord Thrask, is that what you wanted?”

Mara laughs and pulls him to his knees so she can kiss him. 

“It was an admirable first act, Master Quinn.”

He leads her to what must be the commander’s quarters - the only room with a full-size bed in it - and they strip out of their remaining clothes. As they fuck, she wonders, not for the first time, how her life might have gone had Malavai been Sith. Or even just Imperial. Her father was a mere spacer in the Imperial Navy and her parents had loved each other deeply before he died. 

How would it have been to marry for love rather than business?


	12. Alea Iacta Est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara and Quinn both make irreversible decisions.

Mara awakes in sheets far scratchier than she’s accustomed to. She rolls over, grimacing as the material rasps against her skin, the tantalizing smell of caf drawing her closer to the edge of the bed. 

Something in her mind pauses; Edik never brings her caf in bed. That’s just not their dynamic. The only one who has since Daveth died is-

Her eyes fly open. She’s in unfamiliar quarters, utilitarian grey sheets under her. And in the room’s only chair sits Jedi Master Malavai Quinn, bare-chested and barefoot in his dark grey trousers. His blue eyes are riveted on her, a fondness radiating through his sense. 

“Were you watching me sleep?” she asks hesitantly.

“No. I was reading when you stirred,” he nods toward the datapad on his knee. “I watched you wake up.” The metaphysical smirk becomes physical. “I would have thought Sith came to wakefulness faster than that. Given that you’re predators, and so on.”

Mara glares at him, eyes drawn to the side table where, mercifully, sits a second mug of steaming caf. “This is the only reason you still draw breath,” she grumbles, sitting up and calling the mug to her hand.

There’s an unfamiliar clinking sound of metal against ceramic, and suddenly the past twenty-four hours come crashing in on her. She looks down at her left hand, all levity gone. Carefully, she cradles the mug in her artificial hand and raises it to her lips. 

The caf still tastes good.

It’s a stupid thought - of course the presence of her biological limb has no bearing on thow the caf tastes - but she needs precisely that reminder.

“How long were we out?” she asks.

“About four hours.” 

Mara winces and, reluctantly, gets out of bed. It makes sense that he’s not fully dressed; he can stay on this tub until the Republic Military demands it back, which they won’t for some time given the chaos that reigns on the station. She, on the other hand, has definitely overstayed her welcome. It’s one thing to evacuate together in a moment of desperation; it’s another entirely to go back to a Republic ship and stay there for half a day.

Rather than move to get dressed, however, she just stands there, rooted in place with the caf in her false hand, staring at nothing.

“Mara?” She hears Malavai place the datapad on the side table, the rustle of his trousers as he stands.

“I can’t go back.”

The words come out without her consciously summoning them.

“To the station?” he asks. They both know that’s not what she means.

“To the Empire. The infighting and politicking, living with Edik and trying not to hate him or the twins for what his mother did.” The words tumble out in a rush. She looks at him and whispers, “I’m tired, Malavai. I can’t- I just can’t do it anymore.”

She can’t identify the look on his face. There’s silence for a long moment before he asks, “Alright. What do you want to do?”

_ Ah _ . Mara feels herself flush. “There are neutral worlds. If you would give me passage, I can make my own way.” 

She has no idea what she’ll do. She should probably set up a transfer of credits before closing the door on her life. Maybe through a subsidiary Edik isn’t familiar with. Shell companies are easy to set up if you know what you’re doing.

She’s focusing on the details to avoid the bigger issue. She knows that. She has skills, but a Sith for hire would be a flashing neon sign to the Empire. Business consultants need not meet face to face, but she really wants to fight Vitiate. He’s the avatar for everything that’s gone wrong in her life, his poor example to his people. She can’t languish behind a desk. That’s never been her life.

“Do you  _ want  _ to make your own way?” he asks very quietly. 

Mara cocks her head. “I can’t join the Jedi, Malavai. You, at least, would make an admirable Sith, whereas I would be kicked off of Tython within hours of my arrival.”

A smile plays at the corner of his lips as he shakes his head. “Not what I meant. Perhaps I should show you what I was doing before you woke up.”

He hands her the datapad.

It’s a letter announcing his resignation from the Jedi Order.

***

“Please tell me you’re not doing this for me,” she breathes, amber eyes wide when she looks back at Quinn. “You don’t even know if you  _ like _ me what if-”

“It’s not for you,” he says quickly.  _ She certainly doesn’t lack for confidence, does she? _ Then again, her arrogance has always been part of her allure. “This started with the Tanaab mission. And Saresh sending our Force-damned fleet here despite Agent Shan’s warnings?”

His lip twists. Millions of Republic soldiers have died, and they likely raised the Imperial death count by hampering evacuation efforts.

“I can’t… I can’t in good conscience continue to serve an institution that can’t follow its own principles,” he says finally. 

“What will you do?” It’s her turn to interrogate him. 

“There’s precedent for this. The former Jedi Battlemaster has also left the Order. She’s a political wildcard at this point, but I thought I might propose a partnership with her. Try to do some good in the galaxy without the pressures of leading a government.”

He’s thought about this a lot, even during his time with the Sixth Line. Hell, the surviving members might join him given all that’s happened on this deployment. Assuming any of them survived. Assuming Battlemaster Ynez can function through her grief if Agent Shan didn’t make it off the planet.

“It might serve to have a Sith in the fold, so to speak,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant.

“A legally-dead Sith,” she counters. At his confused look, she says, “No one leaves the Sith, Malavai. You die or defect. Defectors’ families are… eradicated. That leaves one option. I won’t be able to influence the order or the Empire in any way.”

He decides to focus on the latter part of that statement. “But you could predict its responses and movements, give us insights into how the Empire works. Not,” he adds hastily, “so that we can attack it. But if we wanted to do some influencing of our own in the fight against Vitiate.”

“Perhaps,” she concedes. Abruptly she seems to realize she’s having this conversation utterly naked, and she hurries to the airlock to retrieve her clothing. She’s silent as she dresses, her sense humming against Quinn’s mind in a way he associates with her being in deep thought. 

Finally, fully clothed, she turns to Quinn, amber eyes searching his face. “I’m not ready to commit to this.” 

Whether “this” means his proposed alliance with the Battlemaster or the complicated relationship they seem to have re-initiated, Quinn can’t say. Either way, he understands, and nods.

“But I will meet with your Battlemaster, if she is alive and willing to show herself to a-” her lips twist, “an Imperial deserter.”

Quinn nods again, unsure what to say.  _ Thank you _ seems trite;  _ you won’t regret this  _ could well be an outright lie. Instead, he says, “How can I help you?”

Her eyes soften, and the relief that washes over him feels like a gift - that she doesn’t want him to leave her alone in this process. That she wants him near at all. Stars, has he always been this far gone and was simply too stubborn or dogmatic to admit it to himself?

“You said, back on Tanaab, that you had some skill as a slicer?”

“Yes,” he says slowly.

“I need to erase any evidence of my having been on the station, and evidence of my treatment at the Imperial med center.”

He relaxes. “Sensor editing isn’t my specialty, but that should be feasible given the sheer crush of people on the station and the residual power surges from the planet.” Any inelegance in his work will be excused as mechanical interference. 

“And I need to transfer some credits before my ‘death’.”

“I have credits, Mara.”

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say before the words are fully out of his mouth. She jerks away from him sharply.

“I will not be beholden to you, Malavai. I leave the Empire under my own power.” 

“Of course, forgive me.”

Her expression softens and she reaches out a tentative hand, her cool palm cradling his cheek. “This,” she gives a faint smile, “whatever it is, must be a secondary benefit, not- not my only refuge.”

He turns to kiss her palm, inhaling the scent of her skin. She’s right, of course, but the prospect of seeing her more often, of not having to  _ hide _ sets his heart racing with a combination of excitement and nerves. He reins in that feeling, though, and sets to work slicing the station’s security feeds. It’s amazing how easy it is with a Sith by his side feeding him codes and telling him what to look out for.

Not that she’s only looking over his shoulder. She has her own datapad out, doing something that involves flimsi trails and shell companies and the kind of financial shenanigans he’s never had a use for, or had to investigate.

“You said your husband had a head for business,” he says after a time. 

“He does.”

“Won’t he notice if credits go missing?”

“Credits flow between our various businesses all the time,” she says, “and I’m not moving individual amounts that would trigger a security audit.”

“I’ll take your word for it. This,” he gestures at her datapad, “is a world I’ve never had to live in.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she replies dryly. “It’s necessary to the working of the galaxy, and rewarding in its own way. But it’s not something I’ll regret leaving behind.” A hesitation. “Where does one store credits outside the Empire?”

That he can help with. Jedi aren’t rich, but they do receive a stipend that is theirs to manage how they see fit. She sets up the necessary accounts, for liquid assets and for investments. She doesn’t show him the amounts she’s transferring to each, and he doesn’t ask.

Finally, it’s done. There’s no visual evidence or medical records that point to Mara having made it to the station. When they try to tally who made it and who didn’t, she’ll be in the latter category. 

An hour later, she’s established a non-Imperial financial presence, and he’s transmitted his letter of resignation to the Jedi Council. They’ll want to see him, to question him in person, if the Battelmaster’s experience is anything to go by, so he requests clearance to leave the station and takes them into space.

***

Mara feels the ship shudder and launch itself into hyperspace, leaving Ziost and its stalled pulse in the Force behind. 

This was her decision. It’s the right one, she’s certain. And even so her insides roil with the conflict of her choice. But there’s no going back now. She left Imperial space on a Republic ship.

Slowly, she moves to the room’s fresher and steps into the shower. The ship’s water stores had been refilled at the Ziost station so she cranks it up as hot as she can stand and steps in, letting the water sear over her skin, burning away her outermost layers. It covers the tears that fall, too. She emerges sore and tingling. The woman staring back at her in the mirror is a stranger - eyes haunted, subtle lines in her face from too long spent frowning.

A shaking breath, then, “I, Maranel Ragnild Thrask, relinquish all claim and responsibility to House Thrask. I do so willingly, of sound mind, and pass my office to Huelwen Dzafine Thrask.”

No one else would ever hear the words. Indeed, once her death was confirmed, they would be unnecessary. But she would know. Some formalities must be observed.

The metal cords rustle loudly in her hair as she unwinds them, like trees in gale-force winds. The weight of the signet leaving her forehead is staggering, vertigo-inducing. It’s been years since she’s taken it off. She’s staring at the metal, running a thumb over the mowhef etched into it, when Malavai’s sense suddenly makes itself known.

She whirls to see him standing in the bedroom, blue eyes soft with concern. 

“How long have you been there?” Her voice is dry, croaking, despite her recent time in the steam of the shower.

“Only a moment. Will you be alright?”

Something about the question melts what little strength she has left and her face crumples into tears. Then his arms are around her and she’s sobbing into his tunic, crying until it feels like there’s not a drop of moisture left in her body. 

“I will be,” she whispers against him. “I just need time.”


	13. The Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mara hits some bumps in the road settling into her new life.

It’s a dinky little base on an out-of-the-way planet, with systems pilfered wholesale from whatever SIS outposts Theron Shan could strip without reprisal. Or at least, that’s what it looks like from Mara’s limited vantage point in an interview room that reminds her of the improvised interrogation cell on Herdessa that began this entire business. The Battlemaster has agreed to allow Mara to plead her case, but the Jedi’s trust clearly only goes so far. Mara doesn’t even know what planet they’re on; Malavai had been forced to keep the coordinates secret.

It’s not as though she doesn’t have proof of her defection. Her “death” has made ripples in Kaas City. As one of the most senior ranking Kaasi-born nobles lost in the attack, her name headlines the list of dead on every major Imperial newsnet, splashed over silent footage of her widowed husband and her cousins dressed in stark white, her empty coffin borne aloft on their shoulders into her family’s catacombs. 

The signet is too big on Huelwen’s brow. Even in official appearances her amber eyes twitch upward periodically toward the unfamiliar weight on her forehead. Her whiteknuckled grip on everything she can get her hands on - chair arms, handkerchiefs - is all too familiar to Mara, from the chaos of her own early days under that signet.

Reporters follow Edik and Innan for a few weeks, from Chwukusk to Edik’s familial seat nearer Kaas City, from there to the Szkania townhome in Kaas City. He’s a dutiful widower in severe white robes and swaddles the twins in white to mourn the mother they will never remember. But the Szkania seal is prominent on his breast, gleaming gold in the camera’s lights, his hand rarely leaving Innan’s in public unless it’s to settle one of the twins more securely in his other arm. 

He looks happy, and they look like a family, and it would be a lie to say it didn’t rankle just a little.

“Mara.”

She drags her thoughts back to the present. Malavai frowns and nods toward the Battlemaster, his reproach as clear as if he’d spoken in her mind. _ You need to take this seriously _.

She keeps from rolling her eyes, barely, and forces her mouth into an approximation of a smile. She’s been in this room for six hours, her prosthetic arm itches like fire, and she’s exhausted.

“You were saying, Master Ynez?” she asks with syrupy sweetness.

Czessara Ynez, former Jedi Battlemaster and current pain in Mara’s neck, is Mirialan, a slight whip of a woman who seems too small for the lightsabers riding each hip. Some part of Mara can’t believe this welp is the person behind the rumors that swirl through the Sith Order. Her violet eyes twitch as if she, too, is just holding back her annoyance.

“Why should I believe you’re here to help, Lord Thrask?”

“Is the word of one of your own not enough?” Mara counters.

“I believe that Master Quinn _ wants _ you to be sincere.” Those violet eyes shift to Malavai, and when they come back to Mara there’s something almost like wry humor in them, quickly stuffed down behind that unnerving Jedi calm. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t trust he’s thinking entirely with his logical mind.”

“You know Malavai’s record better than I do, I’m sure, so I can only assume that’s a high compliment paid to my skills of seduction rather than an insult against his character,” Mara purrs. She leans forward, painted smile shifting into something far more genuine and predatory. “Fearing for your virtue, are you, Master Ynez?”

In the corner, Malavai groans and drops his head into his hands.

The other woman doesn’t flinch. She cocks her head and frowns, the motion tugging on the tattoos that run down her cheeks. “Interesting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re so quick to defend him.”

What does that have to do with anything? Of course she’s quick to defend him. He’s been treated abominably by the order he served, and that has only gotten worse since he resigned from its ranks. He spent a week on Tython while Mara hid on Nar Shaddaa, enduring all manner of questioning. Why he’d want to continue associating with any Jedi is beyond her.

“I’m returning to the ship,” she growls, standing. “You know what I’ve offered and you know how to find me.”

“Fearing for your virtue, are you, Lord Thrask?” 

The use of her title freezes Mara in her tracks, heats the guilt and anger roiling in her to a boil beneath her skin. She whirls, gathering the Force around her hand, and _ flings_. 

The chair she was sitting on topples, the desk rattles backward, and finally Master Ynez crumples with a sharp _ oof _.

“Mara!” Malavai’s voice is sharp as a blade, shock and anger boiling through his sense.

But the Battlemaster shoots to her feet, waving him to silence. She gives Mara a lopsided smile that must be at least part of the reason she left the Jedi Order; there’s no way they would allow such insolence to percolate in one of their most venerated members.

“Be careful about issuing challenges you can’t meet,” she says.

Mara’s answer is a smile of her own and the ignition of her lightsaber.

***

Quinn has no idea what to do when Czessara launches herself at Mara, two lightsabers igniting, one blue and one green, as she flies over the desk. Mara sidesteps her easily and, with another push of the Force, shoves the Battlemaster through the door to carry their little spate into open ground.

He follows, watching as the battlemaster’s cool blades spark against Mara’s warm amber. She manages to hold one of Czessara’s blades back with her shield, moves to drive that advantage home, and a flash of blue Force energy sends her flying backward. She skids across the duracrete floor on her back before rolling to her feet, a bemused smirk lighting on her face. 

Czessara grins in return, and they re-engage.

“You ever see nexu cubs wrestle?” a voice asks from behind him.

Quinn spares Agent Shan a withering glance. “That is hardly an apt comparison.”

“You sure about that?” 

He opens his mouth to snap _ of course _, but hesitates. Mara’s sense is conflicted, as it has been since they left Ziost, but she’s not enraged, and neither is the Battlemaster. Sure, they come close to injuring one another several times as he stares, but, well, nexu cubs also play with their claws out. He forces himself to relax. 

“Twenty credits says Czess beats her into submission,” Shan continues.

“Forty says she fails,” Quinn counters. When the agent’s eyes widen in surprise, he answers with a cold smirk. “This is not the Battlemaster’s preferred language. Lord Thrask on the other hand speaks it fluently.”

He almost eats those words when Czessara’s green blade glances off of Mara’s shoulder. She yells, more angry than hurt, and slams her boot into the ground.

The duracrete craters around the impact and Czessara stumbles. It’s enough of an opening for Mara to sweep her legs out from under her and she goes down hard.

“As I said,” Quinn says, raising a smug brow at Shan. 

Mara stands over the Czessara and extinguishes her lightsaber. “My virtue is just fine.”

Her superior tone is cut off with a squawk when something unseen yanks her backward by her hair and she collapses to the ground next to the battlemaster.

“You can stay,” Czessara replies. “I think we’re going to be friends.”

“Jedi idealism at its worst,” Mara grumbles back.

Czessara laughs.

Quinn and Agent Shan stare at the pile of limbs the two have become. 

“Let’s call it a draw?” Shan asks.

“I suppose so.”

They’re silent as the two women climb to their feet, Czessara speaking to Mara in a tone too low for Quinn to hear. He’s about to join them when Shan clears his throat awkwardly. 

“How’s your brain?” He asks. When Quinn glares at him, he throws his hands up defensively. “Sorry, I don’t mean to insult you. I just… you were there because of me.” His hazel eyes slide away from Quinn’s. “I’m sorry, Quinn.”

Quinn pauses, letting himself really look at the younger man. He’s avoided it, he realizes, because there’s so much of Satele Shan in him it stokes Quinn’s carefully-banked anger back to a dull glow. 

But alongside the features that bring to mind his mother, there’s persistent electricity burns around his implants and much of his face on that side like a grim inheritance of the scarring his father, Supreme Commander Malcolm, received during the battle of Alderaan. Shan is healing, but will be marked by the Ziost disaster as much as Quinn will be. 

“You told us the risks,” he says quietly. “We chose to go. This isn’t on you.” He hesitates. “How’s Suro doing?”

“As well as can be expected given a Sith monster took over her brain and murdered thousands with her blade. The nightmares are getting a little better.”

Quinn winces in sympathy. His own sleep is still troubled, but at least he has his Sith to soothe him when the nightmares fling him back to the waking world. Unlike Quinn or Czessara, Suro is a consummate Jedi. She has no one but the Force for company during the long nights. 

“If she ever wants to talk,” he begins hesitantly, and Shan laughs.

“Suro’s not really a talker, not like that, and definitely not with you.”

Ah. “I’m damaged goods to her as well?”

“Everyone thought Czess was as rebellious as a Jedi could get, leaving the order to shack up with the Grand Master’s estranged son.” He flashes a smile that’s an odd combination of commiseration and razor-sharp edges. “Then here you come with a Sith noblewoman in tow.”

Quinn sighs. He’d hoped to keep at least a little of his relationship with Mara private where the Order is concerned. He should have known better. For an organization built around emotional peace and detachment, Jedi are industrious gossips.

“It must be comforting to tell themselves it’s about my poor character rather than institutional hypocrisy.”

“Isn’t it always?” Shan claps him on the shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I get it. I mean, not the Sith thing exactly, but Czess agonized about how best to serve the galaxy. I can’t imagine it was different for you. Or her, really,” he jerks his chin toward Mara.

“I appreciate you saying that. It wasn’t easy for either of us.”

***

The first few months of Mara’s exile go by quickly. The work is plentiful, and she and Czessara keep a rigorous sparing schedule.

The tiny group Czess has assembled grows by a steady trickle, from just the four of them to a good thirty people, mostly support personnel who run and maintain the base. All are from the Republic, so Mara herself is treated with a combination of contempt and abject fear. Everyone contributes to the chores and maintenance required to keep the base running, which means she gets ample time to watch personnel dive out of her way when she’s walking the halls or hear conversation die down in the mess when she enters. 

Malavai chuckles when she grumbles about it. They’re in her quarters, stuffed awkwardly into her single bunk like teenagers at the Academy. It’s an odd thing to be reliving in her early thirties, and a new experience entirely for Malavai. He claims sharing the single bunk makes his back hurt, but he has yet to turn her down when she invites him into her tiny home. 

“You’re a force of nature, my darling,” he says when she glowers up at him.

“If they’re not careful I may just have them participating in my very own natural disaster,” she mutters.

“You shouldn’t do that.” He lifts her chin so she’s looking him in the eye. “You should win them over.”

“A Sith winning over Republic troops?” she snorts. “A chance would be a fine thing.”

“You won me over.”

“I’m not fucking everyone on this base, Malavai.”

“I should hope not. But you do understand it wasn’t the sex that worked on me.” 

She raises a brow stalk and writhes against him in _ just _ the right way, sending a shudder through his naked body.

“Okay, not _ just _ the sex,” he amends. “In seriousness, Mara. They have no idea Sith can be honorable or generous. They will respect you if they come to know you.”

She sighs. “Your optimism is misplaced, but sweet.”

“Just try. If I’m wrong, I’ll take your kitchen duties for a week.”

“And if I’m wrong?” she teases. “I won’t be, but just in case…”

He cups her cheek, one thumb tracing her lips. “I suppose I’ll have to find a better use for that mouth of yours than slandering yourself and your new allies.”

A win-win situation for her if ever there was one. 

She sets out the following day, making the most mundane of smalltalk with her peers as they service one of the base’s shuttles, pointedly ignoring the voice in her head that balks at earning approval of anyone outside the Empire. The tech looks like he’s about to faint, but over the course of the next several hours she learns that he has two children and enjoys hydroponic gardening. The latter will be a helpful skill, as shipping fresh food to the base is only going to become more problematic as time goes on. He seems surprised when she says so.

And so it goes. Malavai’s main intel analyst is allergic to cats and went into Intelligence after a sprained ankle killed her promising dance career. Their three fighter pilots play a mostly-friendly game of huttball against their ground crew every week and lose every single time. As she lets her guard down and engages some of her allies, the awkwardness slowly fades until, a month later, she has to admit she was wrong. 

She confesses this to Malavai in what is perhaps a stereotypically Sith fashion: with great flare, stripping out of her ground crew coveralls to reveal the one set of silky lingerie she’d purchased during her stay on Nar Shaddaa. Black with gold accents that flare against her red skin.

“Please tell me you didn’t spend all day in those,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Of course not,” she replies, unbuckling his utility belt and slipping to her knees before him. “I can discard them, if you wish.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Mara chuckles and yanks his trousers down. “I trust this is the use for my mouth that you had in mind?” she asks innocently.

He’s already hard, the skin of his cock velvety under her fingertips as she strokes him. He groans and thrusts into her hand before grabbing her head. “You know me so well.”

Before she can reply, his cock pushes into her mouth, which is okay because it just means she can demonstrate exactly how well she knows him.

Malavai must approve of her actions, for he rewards her lavishly after he comes down her throat. He lays her out on his bunk and worships every centimeter of her with his mouth, his sense so warm and all-encompassing it’s like a blanket against her mind. She’s never been so happy to be wrong about anything, and some part of her worries about that - she shouldn’t want to be wrong. 

But the rest of her is quivering in ecstasy under her Jedi’s ministrations and all too aware that she chose this. She falls asleep in Malavai’s bunk sated and content.

It’s perhaps inevitable, then, that an Imperial shuttle touches down at the base the following morning. No one thinks to inform Mara - a testament to her work to become part of the growing team - and she stumbles to a halt in the command center under Minister Lana Beniko’s shrewd gaze. 

Suddenly Czess and Malavai have flanked her, their posture protective. 

“Lord Thrask,” Lana says slowly. “You look remarkably well for a dead woman.”

“Minister Beniko. You’re discreet as always.”

The woman’s mouth quirks upward in a wry smile. “Yes, I suppose I am. After all, neither of us is here, are we?”

Mara relaxes. “Indeed. To what do we owe your visit?”

“Master Ynez has provided several services during the Revanite crisis and ensuing conflict with Vitiate. I’m here to apprise her of the situation within the Empire.”

Malavai whirls on Czess, his surprise mirroring Mara’s. “You’ve worked together before?”

“On Manaan, then Rishi and Yavin. Then Ziost,” Czess says quietly. “I apologize I never said anything. This has been very need-to-know.”

“You neutralized Master Suro,” Mara says. It makes a lot of sense.

And it means Mara is not alone in finding Jedi she can work with. Lana’s likely not _ sleeping with _ Czessara, but the principle is there.

“Yes. And now you two are in on the secret, so to speak.” Lana’s golden eyes bore into Mara’s face. 

“I want to stop Vitiate. Even if I were petty enough to go public with this, who would believe an Imperial defector?” she replies. 

Lana nods, her posture relaxing. “I owe Edik some credits, by the way.”

Mara blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“I saw him at your memorial service. He confided in me that the service was, and I quote, ‘warranted but premature’. I had no idea what he meant until now.”

“I see.” Perhaps she underestimated Edik’s ability to follow the credits she took. Or perhaps she shouldn’t have named that final holding company after her mother. “Is he…”

“I doubt it would be worth it to rock the proverbial boat. He’s happy. Even your cousin is settling into her role. As for me, it’s reassuring, honestly, to have a Sith here full time as a voice of realism.”

“I’ll note she didn’t say ‘reason’,” Malavai quips.

Mara swats his arm playfully. “That’s your specialty, dear.”

Lana’s golden eyes go wide at the exchange, but she simply shakes her head and moves on to discussing the intel she brought with her.


	14. Lord and Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Vitiate is interrupted when a strange force attacks Korriban and Tython. Mara and Quinn formally commit to each other.

It’s been a year since Ziost. A year spent chasing leads and the odd “Revanite” with no results. So, frustrating as it is, Quinn dispatched Mara and a team on this recon mission with no particular hope they’d bring back anything useful.

Which is why he’s shocked when a still-sparking droid chassis sails out the entry hatch and lands at his feet. It’s a design he’s never seen before, like a hulking humanoid in armor, except there are wires and servos where there would be flesh and bone in a biological being. 

He’s no engineer, but even to his own eyes it looks… alien.

He looks up at the sound of footsteps coming down the boarding ramp, figures silhouetted by the shuttle’s running lights. A squad of seven formerly-Republic troopers trot down the dramp. Their leader, a lieutenant who probably graduated officer candidacy school exactly ten minutes ago, nudges the thing with his boot.

“The intel was wrong. Well, it was right that something was wrong. But no Revanites. Just a swarm of these things.”

“I see. We’ll have the lab look at it. Where is Lord Thrask?”

The lieutenant scowls and opens his mouth to answer-

“I’m right here.” Quinn looks up to see her walking toward them. Her prosthetic arm is hanging limp at her side. 

“What happened?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, why don’t we tell Master Quinn what happened?” The honeyed venom in her voice silences the room for a moment. The lieutenant in question glares at her sullenly.

Then, “I disabled the droids with an EMP. Sir.”

“Without ensuring your CO was a safe distance?” Quinn demands.

“If it’s such a problem,  _ Master Jedi _ , maybe they shouldn’t be putting her in the field.”

“Perhaps we should be benching the lot of you until you can learn some discipline,” Mara retorted.

“This ain’t the Imp military; no one here is going to lick your boots.”

From the way she steps forward, her good fist clenched, Mara is about to shover her boot down the lieutenant’s throat. Quinn steps between them. 

“Lieutenant, you will report to Major Hilo immediately for debriefing and disciplinary action for willfully ignoring standard rules of engagement.”

“Why does she get special treatment-”

“That EMP would have fragged anyone’s tech, including your own armor,” Quinn snaps. “Either you were a distant last in your class or you were purposely placing your CO in danger. Report to the major or I will take you there myself.”

The lieutenant glares a heartbeat longer, then stomps from the landing bay like a petulant child. 

_ I could have handled that _ .

It’s not her voice, precisely, more an impression, but one he can hear as clearly as if she’d spoken, if not better, because there’s no obfuscating oneself in the bond they’ve established. He’s not entirely sure when it happened. It wasn’t a lightning flash,  _ boom _ one day she was in his mind. It was more... the slow realization that the comforting presence in his mind was  _ her _ and not some new byproduct of meditation. After that, communication was relatively easy to figure out.

_ Yes, well, we need them alive and undamaged, more’s the pity _ .

That earns him a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. 

“Come on, let’s get your arm looked at.”

“We deal with the droid first,” Mara counters. The smile fades entirely as she stares down at the unfamiliar technology. “There were ten of them on Kessel, Malavai. They nearly overwhelmed me. Whoever sent them, they’re not fucking around.”

“What was their mission?” he asks, lifting the thing with the Force and towing it behind them the short distance from the landing bay to the lab. 

“Hopefully that information will be in its memory banks. Scouting? Though I’d hate to see the army that considers these expendable.”

He hums in agreement and busies himself decoupling the droid’s head and placing it and the torso in separate secure lockers. His team will look at it later, hooked up to a terminal that’s completely isolated from the base’s systems. Only then does Mara allow him to escort her to the medbay. 

The head medic on duty already has the necessary equipment prepped. News travels fast on a base as small as theirs. Fortunately, she is one of the earliest recruits to Czessara’s cause and comes from a background handling biotech. She and Mara have gotten to know each other well in the year Captain Jas Santos has spent maintaining the prosthesis. 

“What have you done to my arm now?” Santos demands good naturedly.

“I caught an EMP,” Mara replies, “courtesy of one of those damned children we just recruited. In my day, we respected our superiors.”

“Yes, and I’m sure you flew uphill both ways to take potshots at the Republic. Sit down, Granny Sith, and let me look at it.”

“How courageous you are, Jas, to kick a one-armed woman while she’s down.” There’s no real rancor in Mara’s voice; indeed, the way she rolls her eyes can only be termed  _ fond _ . She perches on the edge of a medical bed and disconnects the prosthesis with practiced ease. 

It really is a work of art: strips of matte-black durasteel create the housing of the limb, shaped into curves that mirror her biological forearm almost exactly. He’s awoken in the mornings with her left arm curled around his waist often enough, and while it’s distinctly metal, he’s come to think of it as… hers. 

“Master Quinn, I’d prefer if you didn’t hover.”

“Of course.” He leans over to kiss Mara’s forehead. “Get some sleep, darling.”

He returns to his work in the lab despite the relatively late hour, connecting the droid brain to a secure datapad. 

It takes an hour for him to realize he’s getting nowhere. The code is entirely unfamiliar. Even the thing’s power matrix defies every standard he’s ever heard of. It’s more complex than anything he’s ever studied - a terrifying prospect in every way, assuming its keepers are hostile - but he’s not equipped to dig into it deeply enough to learn from it.

He leans back in his datastation chair, allowing his mind to wander through the base to Mara’s quarters. Her sense is the calm, gentle pulse of deep slumber. He can see her in his mind’s eye, face squished into her pillow, one leg outside the blanket for temperature equilibrium.

He brushes her presence gently, touch as soft as if he were ruffling her hair in person, and turns back to his datapad.

The Force shrieks in his mind. 

He jerks to his feet, the datapad clattering to the floor. It’s not like Ziost - nowhere near that scale - but something awful is happening. 

Czessara and Theron are already in the command center when he arrives, the former SIS agent’s implants are blinking almost as fast as his fingers are flying over his keyboard and the former battlemaster paces behind him, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“You felt it, too?” she asks.

“Yes. What do we,” he cuts off as Mara stumbles into the room barefoot and clothed in the soft shorts and loose top she favors for sleep. 

“We don’t know anything yet. Theron’s combing every channel he can,” Czessar says for both of them.

“Got it,” Theron announces. “Shit, Czess,” he looks up, horror written into his features, “it’s Tython.”

“How. The Empire wouldn’t-” 

“No. It’s an unknown force. That’s all we got before comms were jammed.”

Czessara nods slowly, clearly weighing and discarding several options for response. Their tiny force would be a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to even a skeleton defense force. Despite that, it feels odd to do nothing.

“Droids. Is it a primarily droid force?” Mara asks.

Shan frowns at her. “Yes... how did you know?”

“My squad ran into some a day ago on Kessel.”

Kessel is nowhere near Tython. How far into their galaxy has this enemy penetrated?

“Hang on, getting something from Imperial space.” A pause. “Whoever they are, they’re hitting Korriban, too.”

_ Fuck _ .

That wasn’t his thought. 

The door slides open admitting a handful of analysts and off-duty troopers, all chattering as they stare at the information beginning to roll in, cries of dismay and anger punctuating the hum of the staff getting to work, Quinn among them.

Despite the lack of comms, the Republic is managing to pass information along backchannels, perhaps through probes they’ve managed to launch from Tython during the attack, transmitting as soon as they’re out of the range of the jammers.

It’s not a good situation. Tythonian defenses were overrun almost immediately. Heavy fighting on the ground continues for hours.

Suddenly, it occurs to him that Mara’s hanging back, looking distinctly out of place and uncharacteristically small in her soft sleepwear compared to everyone else, in uniform or armored. Amber eyes shift through the room, from monitor to monitor, lips pressed together-

Everything is showing sitreps from Tython. 

Most of the gathered group are from the first wave to join Czessara. They all have warmed to the Sith in their midst. But some unconscious bias remains, clearly.

As soon as he makes that connection, he feels her presence shift, and the command center door hisses shut. She’s moving back through the base. 

He finds Czessara, standing next to Theron. 

“Are we keeping tabs on Korriban?” Quinn asks, butting into their conversation.

“Uh, not really. The Empire isn’t precisely an ally yet,” Shan cuts off, making the same realization Quinn has. “Right. I’ll put a couple of analysts on it.”

“Thank you. I’d like to authorize Lord Thrask to contact Sith Intelligence, as well.”

Czessara nods slowly. “Only if she contacts Lana directly.”

“Understood. I’ll let her know.”

He finds her pacing in her quarters, right hand fiddling with her prosthetic.

“Do you want to talk?” He asks, hovering just inside her door. 

“I should be there,” she says, not slowing. “Defending it. My ancestors’ bones are on that planet.”

“I know.”

“Instead I’m here. Safe.” She spits the word. 

“Do you regret your choice?” he asks carefully.

Her pacing steps falter and he can feel her attention truly settle on him for the first time since he entered her quarters.

“No. I regret that I can’t help. But I don’t regret the choice I made.”

He crosses to her, slips his arms around her waist. “Would it help to know what’s going on? I’m sure Lana could-”

She shakes her head. “The last thing Lana needs in the middle of a crisis is me demanding a sitrep. She’ll brief me when she’s able.” A pause. “And you?”

“Holding up,” he says, though it’s difficult to say whether he’s doing okay because the news hasn’t worked its way deeper into his thoughts yet, or because he knows, if he had to, he could go back to Tython. 

Mara doesn’t have that option regarding Korriban.

“Theron has analysts monitoring Imperial frequencies. They’ll report anything they find.”

“They weren’t doing that earlier.”

“No. I… prompted.”

“Malavai….” she sighs, wobbly smile curving her lips. “Thank you.”

“It was an unconscious oversight, one I don’t mind pointing out. There’s not a lot we can do right now.”

She grimaces. “I know. I hate waiting.”

He draws her down on her bunk, back into the still-rumpled sheets. “I’ll wait with you.”

***

It’s the soundest defeat the Empire has faced since the Great Hyperspace War. Korriban is in flames, many notable Darths dead in the ruins, including Mara’s own aunt Dzafir, who died defending the Sith Archive.

It’s an insulting relief that nothing was plundered from the Archive itself. A relief for the obvious reasons, an insult because it seems like this new enemy saw Korriban only as a target of destruction. Not worth holding or looting at all. That Tython was similarly decimated without plundering is… something, at least.

The one thing both sides can agree on is that Vitiate is the likely leader of this new force. They’re tracking the attackers now, hoping this advance force will lead them to the one-time Sith Emperor. 

Darth Marr has invited leaders from the Republic and Czessara’s little band to attend a summit on Dromund Kaas to formalize the partnership. As much as Saresh balks at the idea of going anywhere near Imperial space, even she has to admit the Empire is generally better at security than the Republic. Liberty and privacy are nearly nonexistent on Dromund Kaas, but the upside is that no one can sneeze without the home guard handing them a tissue, let alone mount an attack.

And so Mara finds herself on Dromund Kaas for the first time in over a year. She’s fully armored head to toe, a mask covering her face and a respirator masking her voice. A biometric scan would reveal her species, and possibly her identity, depending on how rigorous the scan, but Lana assured her and Czessara that she’s prepared for that eventuality. Mara’s identity and family are safe. 

Well. As safe as they can be with a technologically superior enemy nipping at their heels.

They’ve gathered at The Precipice, the swankiest hotel in the Capital District. The ballroom has been given over entirely to a large round table dotted with three separate parties. Darths Marr, Atroxa, and Vowrawn and their aides, including Lana, cluster together; Chancellor Saresh, Satele Shan and Jace Malcolm politely ignore each other; and Czessara is flanked by both Malavai and Theron, Mara behind her as a bodyguard. Security, both Imperial and Republic, outnumber the attendees five to one.

“Absolutely not,” Saresh is saying. “I will not have Imperial forces in Republic space. I don’t see why we can’t continue to police our own borders and simply share intelligence.”

“Because policing your own borders has never been a strength of yours,” Marr rumbles, his once infinite patience starting to unravel in the face of Saresh’s stubbornness, “and that weakness puts us all at risk.”

“How dare you-”

“Chancellor, if I may,” Czessara cuts in, her tone making it clear the ‘if i may’ is a courtesy, not a request, “I propose we create a division of integrated troops. My group can oversee them. We’re already acting on intel from both sides, and we have established relationships with both governments.”

“That’s an intriguing idea,” Vowrawn says, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Assuming our dear Twi’lek friend here will accede to it,” he says with sickly-sweet indulgence.

Saresh bristles. “You speciesist piece of-”

“A recess,” Atroxa barks. Her arm is in a sling, and her face and lekku are still bruised from injuries she sustained defending Korriban. She glares at Vowrawn before saying, “I’m calling a recess until we all cool off. We’ll reconvene in fifteen minutes.”

Half the table jumps up, clearly relieved to step away from the tense discussions.

Mara runs her eyes over the Imperial delegation again, counting the aides and other support staff- and freezes at the sight of a pair of bright yellow eyes.

Edik is weaving through the gathered crowd, moving straight toward her. He must have taken a position in the Ministry of Logistics.

Malavai picks up on her disquiet, turning from Czessara and Theron with concerned blue eyes. They alight on Edik’s hulking form and narrow.

She squeezes his wrist briefly.  _ I’m okay _ . 

He’s clearly only half convinced, but he fixes a final flat stare on her ex-husband before turning back to the others.

“Lord Szkania,” she says, proud of how steady her voice is.

Edik cocks his head. “It’s good to see you’re unharmed.”

She laughs before she can stop herself, peels off her left glove to reveal the prosthesis beneath. “Not entirely unharmed.” She takes the opportunity of putting it back on to think about her next words. “I’m sorry for what you had to endure, but I hope-”

He waves the apology away. “I don’t know when it happened, but you don’t belong with us anymore.” He tosses a meaningful glare at Malavai, indicating he knows exactly when it happened, and continues, “I’m happy you found a place, and gave us all what we needed to move on.”

Mara tries not to stiffen, tries not to flash with shame and anger at his words. She’s only halfway successful. The Force rumbles low in her mind. Even though she chose to leave, even though Edik is remarkably gracious about it, all things considered, the idea of being  _ unfit  _ for Imperial life still stings. 

“I gave you everything I could,” she says quietly. It’s not a defense. Just a statement. 

“I know. And I’m grateful. The twins-”

That low rumble in the Force becomes a roar. She’s still looking around wildly when Malavai’s body slams into hers, knocking her to the ground hard enough to drive the air from her lungs.

The room explodes.

For a moment there’s nothing but the floor bucking beneath her like a crazed rancor and a tooth-jarring humming in her ears. Then slowly, the world steadies and she opens her eyes.

What was a plush but unremarkable conference room is now a field of rubble. The table is in pieces, the duracrete beneath their feet jagged and buckled, jutting up through the carpet like exposed bone. Pieces of the ceiling pepper over the mess.

_ Let me up _ , she thinks, pushing against Malavai’s weight.

There’s no response. 

“Malavai,” she says, shoving away from the ground, panic squeezing her heart with icy fingers. 

His body topples off of hers bonelessly. She catches him before his head hits the duracrete and lowers him gently to the floor. Her hands come away bloody. 

“Czess,” she croaks, staring at the blood on her hands. “Czess, I need a medic.”

A glance down shows the Mirialan woman is still shaking her head, trying to orient herself. Theron isn’t in much better shape. 

She raises her voice, screaming to be heard through the after-effects of the explosion, “Medic! I have wounded over here!”

An Imperial trooper turns his impassable helmeted head toward her and rushes over. 

“Full medivac is two minutes out, my lord. May I?”

She nods, shifting so there’s room beside Malavai’s body for the trooper to kneel and scan him. She smears blood on his pale skin groping for his hand. The medic’s gloved hands slide behind Malavai’s head, careful to keep his neck stable.

“Compound skull fracture,” the medic says. He opens a sterile bandage and presses it against the back of the Jedi Master’s head. “Keep pressure on this until the medivac arrives.”

Mara nods, fumbling to do as instructed. “Will he be alright?”

“Depends on how well you keep that wound closed. You’ll be on the first shuttle to Kaas City General.”

And then he’s gone. Mara keeps steady pressure at the back of Malavai’s skull. She won’t let him die. She can’t. If she loses him, there’s nothing else for her in this galaxy. No home.  _ He’s _ her home.

“Mara.”

Edik’s voice startles her. She forgot he was there. Again. She grimaces guiltily.

“Yes?”

“Give them my clearance code when they arrive.”

That will get them the best care. The fastest care.

“Edik, why-”

“I never did get you a wedding present, if you remember.”

“I didn’t get you one either,” she protests. That wasn’t their relationship.

“You gave me the twins. One Jedi Master is nearly equal to them.”

She smiles, tears trickling under her mask. “Thank you.”

***

Quinn wakes in an unfamiliar medcenter. He blinks, trying to focus his senses, but the world remains stubbornly fuzzy. His eyes fall on the IV bag next to his bed.  _ Ah _ . Painkillers. This is as awake as he’ll get. 

There’s a weight on his stomach, he realizes, and forces his gaze to travel down to a pile of chestnut hair and familiar armored shoulders bent over his bed. Just through the fringe of hair, he can make out her face, eyes closed.

He raises a hand and strokes her hair. Or, that’s his intention. Instead, his drug-addled body manages to pat her head awkwardly. She inhales sharply, glowing eyes snapping open to focus on his face.

“Hello,” he says, continuing to pet her hair clumsily.

“You’re an idiot,” she replies softly, eyes so warm a lump forms in his throat.

The words and her sense are so at odds it takes him a moment to parse her words. He frowns in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m wearing armor. I should be protecting you, not the other way around.” She sits up, one gloved hand stroking his cheek, amber eyes glassy with tears. “You should have known better.”

“It was instinct.”

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’ll try not to do it again, my lord.” 

“You had better not,” she replies, her nose brushing his.

He kisses her gently, cradling her face in both hands. She can feel her tears against his own cheeks. 

“I love you,” he whispers. 

She freezes, draws back, her face completely unreadable aside from the tear stains.

It occurs to him she might think it’s the painkillers talking. And maybe it is, to an extent, but he knows what he feels. What he’s  _ felt _ . Or at least, he hopes that’s all her reaction is. Perhaps love isn’t something she wants from him at all.

“I do,” he says. “I’m not asking for anything in return. My feelings are my own to deal with-”

“I love you, too.”

“You do?” For some reason he can’t quite believe he’s heard her correctly.

“I couldn’t leave the Empire for love,” she says, “but I can stay with you for love.”

“Mara…” he pulls her lips to his again. He takes his time with her, experiencing the lips of the woman he loves.

Only then, does it occur to him to ask about his prognosis. 

***

Malavai is lucky. The fracture was minor, and several months later, he’s completely healed and back on duty. Even though today is not a day for duty exactly.

They’re in the hydroponic garden at the base, Mara and Malavai standing shoulder to shoulder before Czessara. The garden itself has become beautiful, lush trellises of vined fruits, beds of greens and root vegetables. They’ve even managed to grow some thornroses at her request.

She’s wearing a simple slipdress of gold silk that Lana managed to smuggle off Dromund Kaas for the occasion, and Malavai is in a simple dark suit he found… somewhere.

Czess is in battle armor. She’s got an appointment to keep after this. They talked about delaying until she returns, but she insists it’s important to do it now.

“Malavai Quinn, will you take Mara as your partner, and love, respect, and cherish her, in the face of any adversity, as long as you both live?”

His voice is hoarse with emotion when he answers, “I will.”

“And Mara Thrask, will you take Malavai as your partner, and love, respect, and cherish him, in the face of any adversity, as long as you both live?”

“ _ I will love you until we are one with the Force in death _ ,” she says in Sith.

“Good. I’m delighted to pronounce you married.”

Simple, to the point. Its as far a cry as possible from her first wedding, trading millennia of ritual for a depth of affection she never thought she’d experience. She misses her family, her culture - but for now, the trade is worth it.

Malavai grins ecstatically before bending her back in a picture-perfect kiss. Behind them, their gathered friends - early members of Czessara’s force, Lana and Theron - hoot and cheer. Everything is perfect.

Czessara gives them a few minutes to chat with their guests before taking them aside. 

“I’m sorry to marry and run, but I can’t miss the rendezvous with Marr.”

“He’s a stickler for punctuality,” Mara agrees. 

“You are both in command until I return.” Her purple eyes shadow briefly, then brighten. “No wild parties.”

Mara laughs. “You wound me, Master Jedi.”

“Take care of one another. And Theron, please.”

“We will,” Malvai says, his arm slipping around Mara’s waist.

“Good.”

Theron clears his throat. Mara and Quinn wave a final goodbye before giving the couple their privacy, and return to their quarters. 

The lights are dimmed, and a bottle of wine rests on the table with two glasses. It’s a Ziostian vintage.

“Where in the galaxy did you get this?” Mara breathes.

“A Jedi has his ways,” Malavai replies, drawing her near. “I confess I don’t know much about Imperial wines. Lana assured me this was a good varietal.”

“Lana’s taste is impeccable as always.” She leans closer, giving him a smile she’s never seen him resist. “The lights, the wine… if I didn’t know any better, Master Quinn, I’d think you were trying to seduce me.”

“Is it working, Lord Quinn?” he teases, lips brushing her neck.

Her pulse stutters when he uses her title. She’s decided to take his name - hers is dangerous, even now, and it seems appropriate given their unique position in the galaxy. She didn’t realize the thrill it would give her to hear him say it.

“Why yes, Husband, I do believe it is.”

***

Three days later, Mara and Malavai are jolted out of their bunk when the intercomm screeches an emergency. 

“I need you in Command. Now.”

Mara exchanges a look with her husband. Theron’s voice is rough, trembling with emotion. They dress hurriedly and rush to the command center.

“What happened?” Malavai demands without preamble.

Theron is pacing the room like a caged animal, implants blinking wildly, hands flexing as he tries to steady himself. It takes awhile for him to speak. 

Finally, “Marr’s fleet is gone.”

“What?”

“Details are thin; so far only a handful of ships made it out, including Czess’s Defender.”

Mara relaxes. “Did she say what happened?”

“She wasn’t on it,” Theron snaps, slamming a fist into a console. “Kira says she stayed on the flagship. Told them to run. The last thing they saw, the Harrower-” he cut off, swallowing a sob.

“The flagship was destroyed?”

“Rammed one of the enemy ships.”

Something about this feels off. True, Mara and Czess aren’t as close as she is to Malavai. But she should have felt  _ something _ . Shouldn’t she?

_ I don’t think she’s dead _ .

Mara’s head snaps toward Malavai.  _ Do we tell him? _ Hope is good, but false hope…

“You know I can tell when you’re having a conversation right in front of me, right?” Theron growls. “Out with it.”

“We didn’t feel her die,” Malavai says. A factual statement without analysis, but the subtext is clear. The clouds in Theron’s eyes thin.

“You think she survived?”

“It’s possible,” Mara says slowly. “There are parts of a Harrower that are built to survive impacts like the one you describe. At the very least, we should review the telemetry.”

“Consider it done,” Theron says, turning back to the console. 

“Theron,” Mara says gently, stepping closer to lay a hand on his arm, stilling his frenetic work. “If she survived, it’s likely she’s been taken prisoner. I need to know you understand what that means.”

“She was Vitiate’s plaything for months. We’ll find her before she spends that long in his custody again.”

“Vitiata already carved a path into her mind,” Mara says, her voice even. “It won’t take months this time. She may not be the person we know when we get to her.”

“So what are you saying, we just leave her there?” Theron demands turning on her. “I love her, how dare you even suggest-”

“She’s saying you need to be prepared to find her broken. In need of care that would make Suro’s rehabilitation look like a child’s game,” Malavai interrupts. “And if we do, we need you  _ present _ , Agent Shan.”

Something about using his former rank seems to snap Theron back to the present. He glares between them, then gives a curt nod. “I understand, Master Quinn.”

“Good.” Mara lets him go and moves out of his personal space. “We need to gather the senior leadership, brief them on the situation before they hear too much via holonet.”

An energy fills the room with them - frenetic, but focused, purposeful.

Directing formerly-Republic troops in a massive hunt for a Jedi Knight she considers a friend is not something Mara would have imagined for herself even five years ago. But now…

Malavai caresses her mind through their bond.

She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... that's the end! Thank you so much for reading along. This was a fun AU to write. Perhaps more fluffy an ending than I originally anticipated, but here we are. 
> 
> I'm plotting out the last leg (it's a long leg) of Reduced to Ash, so stay tuned for more Mara and Quinn goodness, but in the mainverse. :)


End file.
